


Mostly Cherik Prompts and Stuff

by baehj2915



Category: Multiple fandoms - Fandom, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shop, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American Civil War, Crack, Detective Noir, Drabble Collection, F/F, Femslash, Fluff, M/M, The Fake Great Gatsby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 15:40:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 24,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Check the chapter list for summaries!</p><p>...</p><p>23- Cherik HS Jock/Outcast AU<br/>24- Teen Wolf Melissa/Sheriff musician/bodyguard AU ficlet<br/>25- Erik POV about music post-xmfc canon<br/>26- Charles POV about Erik's trial in DOFP<br/>27- Magneto commissions a portrait-- Cherik foe!yay<br/>28- Cherik FBI Agents in love<br/>29- post DoFP h/c "Erik having to stitch up Charles"<br/>30- Medieval!Charles meets modern Erik</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One Where Charles is Gatsby

**Author's Note:**

> Based off [this post and prompt from motleypatches](http://motleypatches.tumblr.com/post/26223374890/scifantasy-x-men-au-1920s-still-waiting). 
> 
> Hank is Nick.  
> Charles is Gatsby.  
> Erik is Daisy.  
> Emma is Tom.

_Hank's POV_

Seeing their interaction for the first time, and, despite myself, anticipating it, I couldn’t feel but baffled at Charles’ words previously.

“Erik was my very dear friend,” he had said in a delicate tone.

The past tense had not gone unnoticed. Indeed, nor had it gone unnoticed in the whispered gossip of Charles’ endless parade of party guests whose hints hinted at some broken bond, but non-descriptive of how it came to be broken or of what nature the bond was.

In the faux seclusion of the corner far from the patio, Charles and Erik stood close, whatever topic of conversation being spoken lost in the din of the rabble’s chatter. However the natural gregariousness I had come to expect of Charles’ expression and carriage vanished. He made half steps under Lehnsherr’s dispassionate look. His face looked openly worried and inquiring. He looked far from what he’d been until that moment—the premier party-giver of Westchester County, the whole world’s paycheck, sweeping woes and perturbations under the rug. He, for the first time, looked lifesize.  
I had no clue as to Lehnsherr’s typical comportment, though people said he was like an icebox. To me he seemed a bit like every other bird that flew in Charles’ extended flock—undeservedly gorgeous, rich, and a little bit queer. Maybe a little stiffer than most.

If he was a bit cold, not quite meeting Charles’ eyes, he was right down frigid when his glamorous other half, Emma Frost, walked into their little retreat. There wasn’t anything greatly changed about his behavior, but I could see it in how tight his jaw became, the increased sullenness with which he held his drink.

“Hank! Oh, Hank, over here!”

I looked away for a moment, trying to discern who was calling me and from where. By the time I looked back around to the sideline action I had unwittingly been invested in, Erik Lehnsherr was walking off with Emma Frost, looking like he’d rather left arm-in-arm with a corpse.

Charles was retreating slowly up the stairs, his face hidden from view.

I was left wondering why he’d never looked so real or so small before.


	2. The One Inspired by The Conspirator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off this [post and idea by motleypatches](http://motleypatches.tumblr.com/post/24641058432/cractasticdispatches-larrysgirl). 
> 
> It is RPF because the names fit more easily into a Civil War narrative. In which Michael is a deserter from his New York regiment and James is the officer who has failed to adequately subdue him. Because of reasons.

“Angry then?”

James did his best to keep silent. They both knew the reason why the Captain had not yet shot the Irishman for the thief and deserter and malcontent that he was. James despaired over his weakness while Michael found only amusement, seemingly unconcerned with a flogging. 

Or worser still, death before firing squad. Part of James would long to see him hanged, but not bigger than the part of him that would weep in unabashed sorrow at the same. 

“Rousing escape before, no? You’re quite the fearsome lad when provoked. I was impressed… In truth, I was.” 

There was no way they would reach Ohio in time. In one day, James would be a deserter too. He had no story to report for himself that wouldn’t be an insulting fabrication, unbefitting a soldier of his station. He had no malicious intent to forego his duty, but there he was with a criminal, stolen into someone else’s rightful home. He imagined his branding, his flogging. His court-martial. 

Michael laughed. “I mean, the way you barreled down the aisle—”

“Shut your mouth,” James finally snapped, which seemed to startle Michael enough that he finally did, if only for a moment.

The familiar roguish smile returned in fraction to his face. He turned his head to the side, eyeing James in challenge as always. 

“Shut it yourself.” The very tip of Michael’s tongue swept across his lower lip. “You might as well. Can’t be damned twice after all.”

After a long silent moment, James rose to remove his sword and sash. If he was damned, it was Michael who was his demon. And a small spark inside of him hoped they would take damnation together.


	3. Ship War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Destiel/Wincest as in Destiel getting its angsty ust all up in Wincest's soulmating 
> 
> omg what have I done

“Mine. Are. Soulmates! Mine would do anything for each other!”

Destiel pushed Wincest against the wall and pinned it with the intense glare it was known for. They both noticed the leg sliding between Wincest’s thighs, but neither commented on it. 

“You’re unrealistic!” Wincest said.

“You’re impossible.” Destiel inhaled deeply at Wincest’s neck, almost brushing its lips against Wincest’s Adam’s apple. 

“Ugh, you have so many issues. Personal space. Trust. Communication. Mine get an actual canon reference. Season five, episode one, “Sympathy for the Devil.’”

“You might be calling the kettle black in this situation. And at least mine show the classic indicators of every romance known to man. Mine get called boyfriends by everyone, every episode ever. **God** resurrected my ship. _Three times_.”

“You disgust me,” Wincest said, staring at Destiel’s lips.

Destiel sunk its hand into Wincest’s hair. “I hate you.”

Wincest pulled Destiel as hard as it could into a bruising, biting kiss. They descended into a fiery embrace, a cruel mockery of love, but nonetheless consumed by passion. Neither Wincest nor Destiel would relinquish their hold until overcome by the weakness of angry orgasmic release.

Meanwhile, not so far away, Calthazar and Debriel shared fruity cocktails and jokes about anal sex.


	4. I can see you looking at me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a modern au drabbly thing I wrote on tumblr earlier based on [this photoset](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/35361186719/pearlo-yes-i-would-to-see-a-story-about-this). From Charles' POV

Charles has been ignoring stray thoughts since he was seven, when other people’s minds progressed from a nagging press of emotions to defined images and sensations. He’d long since been able to separate from the muddle of foreign minds in public places. The typical exceptions were unusually strong impressions—rage, despair, fear, and immanent violence. Something rising above the safety of his self-made insulation was typically powerful and typically foreboding. 

But then there was, occasionally… something else. 

Words in telepathy, unless explicitly and purposefully communicated, were not really words. There were no sounds in a passing thought, but only the connotation of a word’s intent. Some things might be specifically verbalized in a person’s mind, but more often the words Charles overheard were memory and visual combinations that played around cortical impressions. When things weren’t willfully given to him, thoughts were more a part of the deeply wired mammalian needs set. Thoughts without thought. 

When Charles saw flashes of pale skin—his pale skin, thank you very much—and red and purple and the gasp and echoes of metal photo frames and the distinct cottony bouncing feel of a mattress, he wasn’t so much reading as he was interpreting. Sexual thoughts were almost boring in their relative ease to decipher. 

But Charles thought it was always unfair that despite that sexual thoughts, especially ones about him, were the hardest to ignore. 

There was a sort of echolocation to a thought. If he held on it, interpreted the existing text further and solidified the images with focus, he could find the person. But Charles let it go instead. He liked to guess first. 

There was a comfortably populated coffee house with an outdoor seating area, adjacent to a bus stop. The thought could have come from across the street, but it was sudden, as though someone were walking by. So his options drove down to perhaps fourteen, fifteen people. 

He took a look around. There was a table of four college-aged women next to him, but they were far too engrossed in their own conversation and had been next to him for over a half hour. In fact, considering the tinge of possession and the sense of physical, well, Charles didn’t have a word for it, on-top-ness of the thought, it was unlikely to be a woman. Also the height perspective seemed rather high. When men imagined a sexual tableau, they tended to be higher than Charles, or whomever they were imagining, even if they were laying down. And women tended to imagine him at eye-level. 

There were only five men Charles could sight. Two men in business suits sharing a table on the other side of the women—one of whom was fiddling with his blackberry, while the other eyed the women. There was a waiter carefully bringing out a tray of coffee and food. A passerby walking very quickly. And a man who had just come out of the coffee shop and sat on the bus stop bench.

The man was tall, rangy even, and possessed of a strong, square jaw and big hands. He was wearing sunglasses, possibly occupied with drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, and looking in the opposite direction of where Charles was sitting, yet everything in Charles body told him he was the culprit. There was something about the lines of his body and the Spartan room in his mind. 

Charles wondered if it were the man’s real bedroom, a mostly subdued white room with hints of black and rectangular shapes and warm metal. 

Charles dispersed the muffled insulation he typically used and grasped onto the back of the man’s auburn head. The tone and tenor of his mind fit precisely into the glimpse of thought he’d seen. Part of him was pre-planning the bus ride back to work. Part of him was sifting through sheets of design papers. Part of him was wondering if would have throw Sean the intern out of the window. And indeed, part of him was still thinking about the fair-skinned, probably-bordering-on-jailbait-maybe-not-but-probably human boy with the hair and the lips and not feeling as bad about it as he should be. 

Charles grinned. 

He didn’t want to invade too much, but without even trying too hard he’d already deciphered that the man was a mutant. Mutant and proud, weekly subscription to The Brotherhood, regular volunteer at M-Now. 

Charles thought about it for a moment, but not as long as he probably should have, and said what the hell anyway. With a twitch of his fingers, he twisted in his seat and stared directly at the man so he would see Charles immediately. Then he placed in the man’s mind one of his own most enthusiastic, open-mouthed moans. 

The man jerked, spilling his espresso over his hand. He looked around frantically, while shaking off his hand and spotted Charles. It wasn’t hard; Charles was trying not to double over in laughter. 

There wasn’t a pointed telepathic communication, but there was a definite sense of curiosity and accusation in his mind. 

Charles said, _For someone else with an invisible mutation, you’re awfully quick to pass judgment on who is and isn’t a mutant._

Again, his response wasn’t an actual word, but his understanding was clear. Charles was a telepath. What’s more, Charles was a _cheeky goddamn my fucking hand twink_ telepath. The man had very little familiarity with telepathy, except for a brief history of a classmate in grade school that Charles couldn’t feel anything about other than he was, apparently, not like that kid. 

_I’m 24, you know_ , Charles said. 

With a firmer effort at a verbal thought, it came across as _Disbelief of you baby face_. 

_Yes, you don’t need to feel bad. More than legal_. 

The man gave him a negation and complicated rush of data that basically amounted to humans bad, mutants good no more guilt, but he wasn’t strictly telling the truth. The man had an enormous sense of informed brashness and bravado that was only slightly teasing. Still, Charles couldn’t help himself from laughing. 

Then with a feeling of what Charles would call indulgent eagerness, the man put down his coffee, waved Charles to come closer, and thought _name name your existence sit name_. 

Charles debated whether or not he should for possibly less than a second, before getting up and taking a seat next to the man on the bench, who was more handsome than he thought he was, and more handsome the closer Charles got. 

He smiled wide, displaying a set of slightly too large teeth. 

“And I suppose someone has to teach you how to talk to a telepath, as thinking lewd thoughts is hardly a viable technique.” 

He chuckled. It was a nice sound, slightly bitten. Probably from the smoking. “It you’re your attention, didn’t it?” 

“It did. It remains to be seen, however, if you can keep my attention.” 

There was an obvious surge of pleasure and approval from the man. He leaned in with his shoulders, held out a hand, and said, “I’m Erik, by the way. I thought it would be nice to meet you after we got to know one another.” 

Charles shook Erik’s hand. The palm of his hand was firm and lined with rough parts. He wanted to search out on his own more in Erik’s mind, to find out more about why his hands were like that, which of his parents had auburn hair or green eyes, or what exactly he did with those graphs of building designs at work, but Charles stopped. He pulled back from the enticing storm of Erik’s mind, as Charles had always found it impolite to dig around after one was introduced. 

“My name is Charles. And I can assure you, there’s much more we have to know.”


	5. Stalking only gets you the girl if you're Erela

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [spicedpiano](http://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedpiano/pseuds/spicedpiano)'s promt of a genderswapped coffee shop au. I'm unaware of the formal rules of coffee shop aus--if they need to be working there or just meet there. So this is Erela Lehnsherr pining after Charlotte Xavier in the coffee place in the campus where they profess/work. Also now times.

Erela always sat in the far right corner of Common Grounds with her back to the wall, opposite the barista bar and with a full view of the doors and all the tables in front of her. She assumed this strategic position so she would never have to feel the nagging sensation of someone looking over her shoulder. The unfortunate downside was that whenever she lifted her head from her laptop she was constantly assaulted with the sight of people. People, more often than was acceptable, who wanted to look at her. 

She got a petty joy out of bending their spoons or sending them spinning out of reach onto the floor. But most of the time she could deflect the looking or even a tentative screech of a moving chair by glaring. One of the best compliments she’d ever received was that she had a very efficient glare. 

While she had that going for her—and the ability to deliver a reasonably soul-sapping _No_ should anyone be stupid enough or deficient in reading nonverbal cues to approach her—she found herself currently hoisted by her own petard. Her success in maintaining an aura that gladly kept away the rabble was also keeping the brunette, tea-drinking minx with the Seward Biological Research identification badge and the absolutely fantastic rack away as well. Erela would approach her, except she wouldn’t.

Erela wasn’t unfamiliar with hooking up in clubs or bars, but that wasn’t at all similar. Not that she was possessed of great flirting skill, though she’d been told she had a certain predatory charm, which, upon reflection, perhaps wasn’t a compliment. But Erela looked the way she looked, which was usually more than enough to obtain a hook up. That was the entire purpose of clubs and bars. People minding their own business, looking frustratingly splendid in silly cardigans and marking what appeared to be undergraduate thesis papers, weren’t expecting brusque lesbians to approach them and— say what? 

_Your face is very pretty. Please sleep with me._

_You are an academic, which may not necessarily mean you’re intelligent, but should imply you are and meets a minimum requirement I have for companionship. Also you have fantastic tits. Please date me._

_You laugh and smile like it runs entirely through your body. And I haven’t been able to stop looking at you since I first saw you here two months ago. I have in fact come here exclusively since the third time I saw you. The girl who makes my coffee thinks I’m a loyal patron, but it’s a duplicitous web of coffee lies to cover up my exceedingly suspicious behavior. Please get out of my head or let me know you._

It was fairly rock-bottom as far as Erela was concerned. 

The Woman, because Erela couldn’t bear to give her a name fearing it would betray a horrible romantic streak that would ultimately end in primarily, being wrong, but also being rejected, didn’t hold to a precise schedule. Or rather it intersected with Erela’s mostly on Thursday evenings and Monday lunches. She obviously worked somewhere on the campus, like Erela. The fact that the coffee shop was conveniently close, obviously for both of them, was the only thing that kept Erela from calling her habitual patronizing of Common Grounds out right stalking. It wasn’t like she stopped going to other coffee places. Before this Erela had mostly brought coffee from home in a thermos. She was content to consider the hit to her budget punishment enough for the sort-of-stalking for the moment. 

Though if Erela lifted the brunette’s ID badge out of her purse by the little metal eye on top in order to waft it over and get a better look at her name like she wanted, that would probably be pushing the boundaries of ethical behavior. Well, the woman might think so. Erela heard her arguing with a friend once about housing for mutant students. It was enchanting. 

Yet in all these sporadic moments in two months of watching, Erela had yet, even once, to notice the woman look at her at all. Even heterosexual women looked at Erela occasionally. For a long while, it didn’t even cross her mind as something she wanted. But, maybe, from eye contact she’d be able to glean something more about her. Honestly, she was thinking of doing something stupid like pushing her coffee off the table, just to see if she would look at her. 

Before she could act on anything, once again, the Woman answered a phone call, packed up her things and left the coffee shop in a hurry. 

Erela started debating whether she should come in next Monday lunch, knowing already that she likely would. 

For the rest of the evening she had one more class, an upper level class on French literature, so at least there would no struggling through basic sentences, and then planned on attending a lecture in the Sutter Library about mutants in the military. 

When she stepped into the elevator, she came to a sudden halt, because standing under a yellowed fluorescent light that did nothing to hide the warmth of her smile was The Woman. She was wearing the same clothes from before—a gray skirt, low heels, and a slightly fuzzy pink cardigan that was now unbuttoned to display a satiny cream-colored camisole. But now her hair was up in a loose bun with a wavy tendril hanging down toward her collarbone. Erela was now close enough to read her badge properly. Under her photo and department title it read _Xavier, Charlotte_.

Erela stepped in, dumbfounded. Scrambling for something to say, all she could utter was, “Hello.” 

It seemed enough because The Woman, Charlotte, beamed. “Hello. I recognize you from the coffee place. I thought you might work here.” 

Erela nodded. “Assistant Professor.” 

Charlotte brightly held out her badge. “You read that. I saw you reading it. But my name’s Charlotte.”

“Erela. Erela Lehnsherr.” 

Charlotte’s blue eyes, well, Erela didn’t want to lay it on thick, but they radiated.

“That’s such a lovely name! Is it a family name?”

“Yes. My grandmother.” 

“Oh, that’s sweet. I’m sorry to bother you. I know you don’t like to be badgered. Or rather, I strongly suspected you don’t. I just can’t stop talking in elevators. Annoying, I know. My apologies.” 

“I don’t,” Erela started, even though it was against everything she held dear, “I don’t mind.”

Charlotte waved her hand. “You don’t need to be polite. I talk all the time. You’ll be rid of me on level seven.” 

“You’re going to the mutants in the military talk?”

“Yes! Are you? Well, yes, obviously you are. I mean, are you—I don’t mean to be impolite.” 

Erela had to stop herself from shouting. “Yes. I can, well there’s not a handy name for it, but I can manipulate magnetic fields. I’d demonstrate, but…” She motioned their surroundings in the elevator. 

Charlotte, though, didn’t look frightened, but laughed instead. “Better safe than sorry. I’m a boring old telepath. Don’t worry. I won’t intrude.” 

There was hardly anything boring to telepathy. Generally people’s fear of telepathy far outweighed that of Erela’s ability. And Erela could be a human car compactor if she wanted to be. She sometimes wondered if she would ever get the opportunity to see if she could lift whole buildings from their foundations. Yet while massive physical destruction had its appeals—in high school Erela had been fairly aggressively courted by the Army—godawful television pundits and fearful racist conservatives usually sited telepaths as the most dangerous of the _mutant threat_ to society. 

“I’d bet you have to say that a lot.”

Charlotte shrugged. “It’s not an unreasonable concern. It’s best to just get the disclaimer right out of the way.” 

As much as she wanted to tell Charlotte that she shouldn’t have to apologize for her gift, she also wanted to talk, now that she had the opportunity to do so without looking like a disturbing stalker. 

“Well, I have some familiarity with telepaths. My ex-girlfriend, Emma.” 

Charlotte smirked at that, looking up into Erela’s eyeline. Erela took the coy look for her bait being caught. 

“It’s nice to find that level of understanding. My ex Moira was lovely, but she’s human. And sometimes….”

“It’s good to be a with a mutant.” 

Charlotte’s contentment at that drifted from her, in more than body language, like she was giving Erela a little mental caress. “Perhaps we can talk later, after the lecture. Coffee?” 

Erela grinned. “That would be lovely.”


	6. This I tell you, brother, you can't have one without the other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off [this photoset](http://motleypatches.tumblr.com/post/35832424327/a-mansionworld-is-not-big-enough-for-both-of-their). Just Mutant Husbands fluff.

Charles heard that low-level sound from the back of Erik’s throat that he heard whenever Erik wanted to throw things. He didn’t want to call it a growl because it wasn’t that intense. Nor did he want to call it a grumble, as it was that tenor of noise that implied Erik’s grudge against the world not operating to his standards. It was a growble. Charles liked the sound of that. 

“Where’s my bloody pen?” Erik said, leafing through his notebook on the couch. 

Charles held out his. “Use mine.” 

Erik looked at him as though he were mad. “I don’t want to use yours. I want to know where mine is.” 

Erik had a definite thing about his possessions being neatly on hand, or failing that, knowing precisely where they were. 

“It’s probably fallen under the cushions.” 

Erik sighed. “I would be able to feel it if it were in reach.” 

Charles refrained from rolling his eyes. If Erik could memorize every bit of metal like he thought he could, he wouldn’t misplace the damn thing in the first place. “Well what does it look like?” 

Again Erik looked at Charles like Charles existence was a personal slight against him, which was a surprisingly frequent look. They of course had intimate moments where Erik showed his more tender feelings, but the vulnerability drained him and made him fearful. So if Erik could help it, he tried to treat Charles like he treated everyone else: at arm’s length and with a modicum of disdain. The only indicator, aside from simply reading Erik’s mind, that Erik did in fact hold Charles in higher regard and with greater affection than anyone else was the simple fact that looked less offended by Charles than the others in the mansion by an easy thirty percent. 

Charles would never admit to it, but his goal was to get that up to nearly half the time in the next year. Charles was considering going so far as maligning the others by framing them for leaving doors open and food out of the pantry. Erik hated that.

“It is the only pen I have, so it looks like exactly like the pen I have always used.” At Charles’ unamused stare, Erik relented and said, “It has a high nickel content and a chromium finish.”

Again at Charles’ wordless stare, he added, with a burdened sigh, “It’s silvery.”

Charles looked down at his desk to see if it had wandered over, but was surprised to see layered papers and reference books interwoven in a messy pile across most of the surface. He hadn’t remembered it getting like that. Now it seemed precarious, as though moving anything might ensure he’d lose it forever. 

“There’s a little checkered pattern lined into the grip. It took it from a Dutch collaborator. It has great sentimental value.” Erik tossed one of his books onto the coffee table. “I’ve no idea why I’m looking over here. You probably took it.” 

Charles was offended, despite thinking Erik was probably right. 

Even though by all outward appearances Erik seemed to dislike working in the same study as Charles, he continually did so anyway. There was nothing stopping Erik from using his bedroom, the other study, or one of the two libraries. Or an empty bedroom if he’d liked. But Erik stuck close to Charles’ study, probably for several reasons. It made the business of running a school easier if they kept all the necessary paperwork together. It made it seem to the children as though Erik and Charles were a cohesive unit of administration with a base of operations, rather than two enthusiastic amateurs not too much older than their own students. And Charles took not a small amount of pride in knowing that one of the reasons was simply that Erik felt more comfortable in the same room as Charles. 

But in their shared space, Erik would ask Charles to look over something, or Erik wouldn’t ask and Charles would look over his grading or paperwork anyway, make a notation here and there, and then walk off absentmindedly a folder or a book or a pencil. Or maybe a pen. 

Erik gathered his rangy limbs and walked over to Charles’ desk with a determination that made Charles feel very protective of the clutter strewn about his desk. Erik slid his fingers over the overlapping corners of papers and picked up a manilla envelope full of expense receipts with his other hand. It made Charles’ stomach lurch. 

“No,” Charles said, dropping his arms and shoulders over the bulk of his mess so Erik couldn’t disturb it. “I have to sort through it. Just use one of mine!”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “In the entire time I’ve known you, you have never once sorted through anything. We have to pay Alex to file for you. I sincerely doubt you’ve ever used your filing cabinet except to take things out of it.” 

“I don’t—” Charles paused because while he was certain he had organized things before, he couldn’t actually remember ever doing it. “I’ve put things away. I’m sure I have. Alex hasn’t always tidied up for me, so I must have.” 

“No. Before Alex, I did, but I got fed up with it. And the only reason I started is because Raven was doing it for you and I thought she could use a break. I didn’t realize offering to clean up your desk had passed her bonds over to me.” 

“I’m very suspect about this. It sounds grossly exaggerated.” 

“The fact that you don’t even know serves as evidence enough. Move your arms so I can look for my pen. I’m sure you have it.” 

“We’ll find your pen eventually. Let me look through this and put it where I know I’ll find it again. 

Erik gestured widely around what was more or less Charles’ side of the study. “How can you possibly do that? There’s nothing but chaos over here.” 

“I organize,” Charles said, because it was true. “I simply do it after I’m done with what I’m working on. And I need all of this right now.” 

But Erik was looking at the various stacks of books and binders on the bookshelves, with books he’d meant to put on the right shelf or back in the library, but had forgotten. And a collection of various things—a few pencils, a teacup, his watch, a spoon for some reason—set on the shelves undoubtedly because Charles had set them there while looking for a book and then forgotten them. Charles wasn’t messy, really. He was just absent minded about his surroundings while he was writing. 

“If you didn’t have anyone reining you in, you’d be spilling out all over the place.” 

The response _Well it is my study_ was nearly out of his mouth, before he thought of the potential row that would result if Erik, on top of being already slightly angry, was in a sensitive mood. 

“I’m not the one who makes his revenge collages on every available surface.” Charles looked pointedly at the chalkboard Erik had co-opted, as long as they were taking the opportunity to needlessly criticize each other. 

Erik looked at him with a mixture of guilt and indignation. “It isn’t a collage. Or about revenge. It’s simply a… a diagram to help track our enemies in the government.” 

The side of the chalkboard they were talking about had been taped full of newspaper articles, pictures, and Erik’s own handwritten notes about people in the FBI they’d worked with and bureaucrats they’d met with about the mutant issue. Erik said it was to help keep track of them “in case.” In case of what was an issue that went largely undiscussed because Erik was convinced Charles was naive in assuming the government wouldn’t try to identify them all to exterminate them. And Charles was convinced that Erik was in terrible need of therapy. 

Charles squeezed the bridge of his nose. “You thinking of them and calling them enemies, rather than an obstacle to overcome, is what’s going to make them enemies, Erik.” 

“Oh, we’ll overcome them eventually.” 

Charles sighed. One of these days he was really going to have to stop overlooking Erik’s penchant for ominous statements. 

“You do know that if any one of those people on the board dies suddenly I will be the first to be suspicious.” 

Erik waved him off and said, “I’m not going to kill anyone,” but seemed more annoyed by having to repeat the sentiment than the assumption that he might. 

“Wonderful.” Charles handed his pen out to Erik again. “Just use mine until we find it later.” 

Erik visibly slumped at having to give in, but assented and took the pen from Charles. However he suddenly stopped half way through his turn away from Charles’ desk, and whirled back around, shoving the pen back in Charles’ face.

“What?”

“This is my pen!”

Charles leaned back to take a better look. And it was like Erik had described, a slightly dimmed silver color with an etched handle. 

“Oh! So it is,” Charles said amusedly. Seeing the determined exasperation in Erik’s face, Charles, feeling a little guilty about it knowing how it would likely affect Erik, bit his lower lip and looked at him beseechingly. He leaned up and kissed the side of Erik’s face, and brushing a bit of his ginger scruff with the back of his hand. “My apologies, love.” 

Charles could feel Erik’s anger dissipate, despite his urge to hold onto it. He growbled again, but didn’t leave the room, forcing Charles to smile contentedly.


	7. Always reminding me that we're apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://malaptica.tumblr.com/post/36719572141/stardust-nat-king-cole-there-was-a-fic-in-which) and the song "Stardust" by Nat King Cole.

Humans constantly wanted to know what made him the way he was. There was a surprising number willing to forgive the exploding buildings and the attacks on army bases because of the War. If not forgive, at least claim he wasn’t entirely culpable for actions. But he would not recuse himself. Magneto did what he did to liberate and defend mutants in a world that would never accept them. 

They made pleas for interviews. The rare times he was in public as Magneto, and not orchestrating a raid, he was hounded by newspaper people, their questions shouted over each other. _Are you responsible for this explosion? What do you have to say about the incident in Detroit?_ Blah blah blah. He never expected the célébrité. 

Though once, there was a meeting he was attending to discuss establishing a UN committee on mutant rights, and as he was leaving, a question he’d never heard before rang out amongst the voices. He stopped. It was odd because he never stopped for questions. If Mystique had been there, she’d have hurried him along, but she was in South America, meeting a contact. 

“What?”

There was small woman holding a microphone, looking nervous, but obviously steeling herself. There were a few cameramen and a crowd of now-silenced men and women with notepads waiting for his response. 

“What did you say?”

“I said,” the woman swallowed dryly. “Do you have any regrets?” After a silence she added, nervously, “Whether you approve of humans or not, there must be something you regret about cutting yourself off from human society?”

For less than a fraction of a second, he wanted to accuse her of telepathy. But, of course, he was wearing the helmet. What his mind had leapt to, no one else could or would know. Not but a few people, who hadn’t said anything after nearly fifteen years, so what sense would it make to start now. Charles had gone to quite an extent to never reveal the truth of his injury to the public. And after nearly fifteen years, the word regret was inextricably linked with Charles in Erik’s mind. 

When he heard regret, he thought of easy conversations over chess that had turned, nowadays, to wary at best, and dangerously tense at worst. He thought of shared meals in the servants’ kitchen of the mansion, because Charles didn’t like the dining room. He thought of laughter as their shoulders brushed in a hallway. 

But mostly he thought of very late nights in Charles’ study, or a shared hotel room, and the pop of a record player during a low, sentimental song. It was the smell of Charles’ hair as they stood close and no more moved than swayed. It was one hand wrapped around Erik’s, with the other caressing a shoulder. It was the press of Charles’ forehead against his jaw. 

Magneto cleared his throat. “I regret the lack of dancing.” 

The reporters, who had been eagerly waiting for his words, quieted in confusion and did not follow when Magneto walked brisquely away.


	8. high school au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from pearlo's prompt that charles and erik would be _that_ couple in high school, filling up the drama quota for the next month every friday

“I cannot believe you’d be so disrespectful.” 

“That’s strange because I can easily believe it.” 

“Inappropriate,” Charles tutted and dropped his Anatomy book on the ground. “And entirely disrespectful.”

“Are you clucking? Are you actually turning into someone’s grandmother?” 

Charles angrily took his books from his morning classes out of his backpack to begin to replace them with afternoon books. “There’s no doubt you’ll be suspended. Maybe expelled.” 

Erik rolled his eyes. “I think you’re overstating things a little, babe.” 

“I think you’re being foolish.”

“Foolish? As in, like a fool?”

“Yes. And selfish.”

The look of smug mirth disappeared from Erik’s features. “Selfish? How could it be selfish? It was a protest.” 

Charles sighed in disgust, having heard the excuse too many times for comfort. 

“It was a protest!” Erik reiterated. “You’re just mad because you think this is going to ruin your chances for class president. Newsflash, Charles, you’re the only one who wants to be. You were class president freshman year. You were class president sophomore year. And congratulations, you’ll be class president this year too. Now, who’s being selfish?” 

“That wasn’t what I meant at all. I don’t think anyone blames me for your stupid behavior.” 

“Excuse me?” 

Charles slammed his locker door shut. “You can’t wallpaper the Young Republicans’ activities and message board with gay porn, Erik!” 

After a long pause, Erik said calmly, “Pretty sure you meant ‘shouldn’t,’ because if you walk over to the Young Republicans’ activities and message board I think you’ll find I already did.” 

“Yes, congratulations on your stupid, childish prank. I hope being expelled is going to be worth it.” 

“It was a protest. And don’t be melodramatic. And if I am going to be expelled, which I’m not, it would be for the sake of political freedom.” 

“It was a stupid, childish, offensive, pointless, and insulting _prank_. And people do get expelled over this sort of thing because this is exactly the sort of thing that the conservative parents of the conservative members of the Young Republicans get worked up about! And it might, _might_ , be worth it if you protesting against the administration, or the student council, or anyone who made any rules at all instead of the bloody Young Republicans club! It wasn’t a statement. It wasn’t free speech. It was stupid and mean, not to mention self defeating.” 

The hallway filled with tension, while Charles and Erik simply stood and looked at each other in silence, as though they were seeing each other in entirely new light. 

“Fine,” Erik said coldly. “I thought you were interested in taking a bold stance with me, but I guess not. That’s fine.” 

Charles pulled on his backpack straps. “I don’t think I want to go to that movie tonight.” 

“Fine,” Erik ground out. He turned quickly to walk away. “I’m sure you can make new friends with the fucking Young Fascists club!” 

“Have fun protesting your expulsion when you try to apply for colleges!” Charles shouted, before storming off in the opposite direction. 

“Charles and Erik broke up,” Alex said without presentation, once the dust had settled. “Again.”

It was a standing joke amongst a good portion of the school. Sometimes even the school newspaper would glibly mention it in the gossip column.

“Must be a tuesday,” Armando said, pulling his backpack over his shoulder. 

Alex shook his head as they walked to their next class. “Those two, man. I don’t get it.” 

Armando grinned fondly and shrugged. “The heart wants what the heart wants.” 

“Bet you they’re back together by monday.”

“No deal. They’ll be making out by the pool in time for Emma’s party Saturday night and you and I and probably the janitor know it by now.”

“Yeah, probably.”

By the end of the day, word of Charles and Erik’s latest break up had spread across the school. As well as news of Erik’s three day suspension. But it was no surprise to see Erik lingering outside the east doors Friday morning, holding Charles’ hand, after giving him a ride to school.


	9. It's very feng shui

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [palalife's post about this decor](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/46574059904/palalife-homedesigning-a-hipster-loft-i) being very Erik.

“It’s very… clean!” Charles said, making sure to smile.

Because it was. Immaculate. That level of cleanliness and organization always impressed Charles. Well, most levels of cleanliness and organization impressed Charles. He seemed to be in a constant state of confusion about dust—and how did Erik have a big… sort of… art corner and have it looking spotless when Charles set a book down for a day it was covered in dust? Or, well, a week.

Either way, in Charles’ flat there were books everywhere and dust on top of the books. He wasn’t exactly starved for money, but he’d never seen anything so bloody spacious in his damn life. He grew up in a mansion, yet the mahogany and the dark, heavy drapes looked small and closed-in in comparison to what Erik had designed.

Charles just wasn’t sure if he liked it.

“You don’t like it,” Erik said flatly, with a tiny frown, as though he were the mind-reader.

“Oh no, it’s not that. I mean, I don’t know anything about decorating. I was impressed when the globe in my father’s study turned out to be a little bar trolley. This is a bit beyond me.”

“A globe bar?”

“This is nice!” Charles said. “It’s more cheerful than I expected.”

Erik’s frown noticeably deepened. “Cheerful?”

“The colors,” Charles said a little lamely, because he didn’t say what he wanted to say, which was that he was expecting stainless steel everything with ninety degree angles and gigantic sculptures that looked like angry demon claws.

 

“They’re passionate, not cheerful. It’s supposed to evoke zeal and blood.”

“Well… yes, but they are just furnishings.”

Erik went quiet for a moment while very deliberately, accidentally-not-accidentally projecting _good thing he’s pretty_.

Charles frowned. “I have a PhD, you know. Not to mention—”

Erik pressed his hand to the small of Charles’ back and started to gentle steer him forward. “It’s very important I show you the bedroom.”

Charles couldn’t help himself, and leaned into his hand. “Yes, vital.”


	10. multifandom mini challenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a series of three sentence fics I wrote from prompts on tumblr. There are XMFC, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Vikings, and Avengers-verse drabbles.

**Vikings**

prompt: _athelstan/ragnar/lagertha, fur_

There were many aspects of carnal sin Athelstan had failed to envision in his feeble preoccupations before the devil brought him to this foreign place, this insidious garden of fleshly desire. He had assumed the sensations would provide some temporary recompense against the threat of eternal damnation, but he had no idea the sensations would prove so luxurious.

Lagertha laughed crisply, folding the edge of the fur over his arm and drawing Ragnar near as well, and said, “Look, he’s like a sated babe.”

 

prompt: _athelstan/ragnar/lagertha, amnesia!_

Lagertha pushed her fingers into the boy’s dark forelocks, twisted, and pulled him to her bosom. Ragnar stroked the pale, soft space between Athelstan’s shoulders, feeling him shudder.

“Shh, shh, this is how you remember.”

 

~*~

 **Supernatural**

prompt: _Sassy, college AU_

The fabled upstairs tenant was standing in the shadow of the garage, glaring in at the hastily assembled beer pong tournament with a surprisingly commanding atmosphere of righteousness. Sam felt a certain amount of shocked awe that not only did the upstairs tenant really exist, but he was also strangely hot.

His look of stern disapproval only improved when Sam said with a can of Schlitz, “Do you wanna play a round?”

 

prompt: _can I get some destiel on the side? how about they're at a drive-in?_

“This is an exceedingly ineffective format to enjoy cinema. It appears most of the other patrons aren’t even watching the movie being projected, but are writhing in—”

Dean loudly reached grabbed the bag of take out, chanted _lalalala I can’t hear you_ in the back of his head, and threw it on Cas’ lap, saying, “Eat your burger before it congeals, Cas.”

 

prompt: _Cockles, student/teacher :3_

“Your name is Misha?”

That earned him a half-amused, but unimpressed eyebrow raise from where Professor Collins was sitting lotus-style on top of his desk.

“The Namaste Yoga clinic has totally gratuitous pictures of your ass on their website, by the way.”

 

~*~

**Teen Wolf**

**prompt: _Scott/Stiles, Parent Trap-esque AU_ **

**“And then at one point we’ll perform a cute, kitschy duet, which will lull them into a false sense of security ensuring for emotional openness and vulnerability, and then wham—married parents.”**

**Scott rubbed his cheek against the soft fuzz of Stiles’ hair and said, “I’m not sure that’s the best way to make sure we get to stay together.”**

**Stiles made a thinking sound, leaned closer into Scott’s side, and poking at the beads of the friendship bracelet Scott made him that afternoon, said, “I’ll think of something.”**

**prompt: _Stiles/Derek from Teen Wolf; scars (preferably Stiles')_**

**The mess of thick, asymmetric scar tissue on his neck isn’t like the traditional badge of a badass action movie villain he always wanted. This has color and texture and can’t be easily hid. He likes the realness of it because Derek touches him religiously—afraid and reverent at skin that isn’t a blank slate.**

**~*~**

****The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey** **

****prompt: _Thorin/Bilbo; jewels (bittersweet maybe?)_** **

****“Do you see something that interests you, Mister Baggins?”** **

****The dwarfs had pockets upon pockets in their layers of cloth and rucksack and saddle bag into which they stored many hidden things, but Bilbo wouldn’t have guessed at a simple, fine necklace with a bright faceted ruby.** **

****“It is one of the few treasures of my family still in my possession.”** **

****

****~*~** **

******The Avengers** ** **

****prompt: _Would you give me modern day Steve/Bucky? :3_** **

****He never thought he’d run into what used to be scrawny little Steve ever again, let alone in mid-mugging after the guy damn near broke his nose. But Steve never was one to stand idly by when someone needed help, no matter what kind.** **

****When Steve put a hand under his arm and helped him—shit, was it weird having to look _up_ — a light dawned on his face and he smiled, “Bucky?”** **

****

****prompt: _Stevetony, coffeshop AU_** **

****“While I’m certain you think your absolutely criminal silence should deter me, this is a very grave, serious matter and I will not be defeated. Coffeehouses were invented as a safe haven for intellectualism to nurture stimulating and challenging conversation, not to hide behind little scrib—is that me?”** **

****Steve quickly turned the page so his animated, annoying subject wouldn’t see how much detail he’d put into the eyes.** **

****

****~*~** **

******X-Men: First Class** ** **

****prompt: _charles/erik, con man au_** **

****Sometimes Charles felt being gifted with telepathy was quite unnecessary. More often than not, for people of all ages and all sorts, a steady four and a half seconds of eye contact combined with a slow rising smile did the trick.** **

****The stranger—handsome but exuding the sense he’d seen better times—was conflicted, but picked up his keys, saying, “I’ll take you to Chicago, but from there you’re on your own.”** **

****

****prompt: _Eric/Charles; hair_** **

****It doesn’t seem like it’s a thing that can sneak up on someone suddenly. It’s definitely a thing that takes time—many years for most people. Yet Charles feels as though it’s only been this morning that he woke up to see the sun streaming in through the window to illuminate Erik’s burnished silver hair.** **

****~*~** **


	11. Noir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just some classic noir au based on [this pic](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/51260009295/theletteraesc-so-delightfully-noir-i-feel)
> 
> ~~~

I only heard one footfall and a soft, dull clunk before the door opened. I expected it to be Raven, half a blonde head turned brown, saying whoops-a-daisy before flickering into some new stunner, leaning in too close and asking me if she looked presentable, always barking up the wrong tree. Then I felt something like a heavy wristwatch, more metal than on a lady’s watch. 

And he walked in. 

It was like he parted the stale remnants of smoke lingering from earlier with just a look. 

He looked like the sort of man who hadn’t worn anything that hadn’t been tailored his whole life. His suit was a three piece English cut of dark navy twill, stiff and reflective. There was dark cane with a silver head leaning delicately from his left hand. His outer jacket was fastened with silver-plated buttons, but still showed a bit of slim waistcoat, darker than the rest of the suit and lined with some indiscernible pattern at his distance. His collar was bright, starchy white. And he wore a yellow, silk tie that looked mellow and sharp and off-putting and winning all that once. 

He seemed to shine all over, from his coffee brown hair to his cufflinks to his leather shoes. Especially his eyes, blue like forget-me-nots. And from the rise of his red lips, he knew it too. 

He closed the door behind him before I could stop gawping. He flicked his wrist to adjust his sleeve and leaned on his cane. In a few quick steps he was in front of my desk, bright and smiling and somehow appearing large in my tiny, dreary office, despite him being smaller than me on closer inspection. 

“Mr. Lehnsherr,” he said with an accent I hadn’t heard since the War. “It’s good to meet you.”

Finally feeling my tongue unlock from being struck dumb, I cleared my throat and said, “You have me at a disadvantage. Normally my gal friday tells me when people are coming to see me. Must’ve slipped her mind. She gets dizzy sometimes.”

The man’s smirk seemed to set in more deeply. “I made no appointment, but you already suspect that, I believe.” 

“Yeah.”

I motioned to the chair. He obliged. I could see his fingers going white on the sides from the pressure he put on the cane until he was seated. So he actually had a gimp leg and wasn’t making using it as some swishy, gentleman’s fashion accessory. 

“So what am I supposed to call you?” 

“You may call me Professor X. Or simply, Professor.” 

“Don’t you think it’s a bit unfair, not telling me your real name?” 

“Not so long as you’re doing the same.” 

It felt a punch to the gut. Everything about him became instantly sinister. The obvious wealth, the British accent, even, no especially his good looks. The best possible outcome at that moment was him being SIS, or possibly some rich eccentric who gave out money and wound up knowing too many things about the War. Considering those were the best options, I didn’t really want to think of the worst. 

I tried to slide into my chair slowly, but gravely—not to give away I was getting closer to the heater I kept taped under my desk. Not having to use my hands made it easier, but he must’ve seen my reaction because he opened his hands in a gesture of peace offering. 

“I mean no disrespect, Mr. Lehnsherr. I want to cause no trouble.”

“I don’t figure you’re here to have a friendly chat. Unless you want to tell me how you knew my secretary would be leaving early today. Or my name, for that matter.” 

“You have your tricks. I have mine.” 

Something about his tone made me think there was honesty underneath his cryptic statement. Normally, a man with his face, a man who wore money while giving out false names, I’d think was bluffing beyond his bet. But the Professor did seem to have sureness on his side. 

I shrugged and let it go for the moment. 

“I represent a group of people who would like to see if you’re available for employment for something that technically falls outside your advertised skill set.” 

“You’re giving me the option?” 

“Of course.”

“Then I decline.” 

The Professor smiled smugly. “Perhaps I can change your mind.”

He pulled his cane into his lap and twisted the top off. He pulled a rolled up piece of paper out of the hollow compartment. When he showed it to me I knew it didn’t matter what kind of money he was offering—I’d be taking the case. 

“He’s going by a different name now. Sebastian Shaw. It took us a while to put it together. But you’ll know him from his days as a Dr. Schmidt.”

“Who are you?” I said, unable to tear my eyes away from the photograph. Somehow, Schmidt looked younger. He was without his mustache and moving away from the camera, but it was him. I’d know him anywhere. “Who do you work for?” 

“That will come in time. That is, if you’re interested and pursuing this man and bringing him to justice.” 

The only justice for men like Schmidt was a prolonged, violent death. 

“Yes,” I said, finally pushing the picture away from me. 

The Professor looked at me with some reserve, but he nodded.

“Good,” he said soberly. Then, after a pause, smiled nearly coyly once again. “What have you heard about mutants, Mr. Lehnsherr?”


	12. stranger danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little McFassy AU based on [this pic](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/49282866226/kageillusionz-jabletown-this-shop-makes-me)  
>  ~~~

“Um… Michael?”

The man nodded, looking James up and down manic and hungry. He was tall, raw-boned. He had long arms and broad shoulders that withered to a slim waist. His auburn hair and red beard were dishevelled. James couldn’t tell if it was artful, or looked good just because the man had the kind of good looks that transformed everything shabby and careless into a design. 

When James answered the ad, he’d been expecting someone less… that. To be honest, he’d been expecting someone a helluva lot more swishy considering the central theme of the ad requesting his beard. 

Before James could say anything else, Michael moved toward him. Well, more like lunged. James wasn’t the sort to worry, or he probably wouldn’t have come. But Michael was fast and tall and surprisingly strong and wrapping his long arms over James’, trapping him against the bathroom wall. He pushed his jaw against James’, forcing his head to the left. James tensed waiting for something sudden or violent after he got done mouthing along James’ jaw. 

And he kept waiting. 

Michael didn’t move for James’ trousers or try to stick his tongue down James’ throat or relent from pressing James against the wall. Or even stop brushing against the side of James’ face like a cat on a scratching post. James still couldn’t move his arms above the elbow. The thick repetitive rasp of Michael’s ginger scruff against his was starting to create a curl of anticipation running up his spine, despite the sensation of waiting for something to happen. 

Time and silence swiftly turned the scene from a tense curiosity to a strange awkward stasis that was starting to burn James’ face slightly. 

“O-kay. What is this? What’s happening here?” 

Michael huffed slowly and loudly into James’ ear and switched to the other side of his face. Finally overcoming the awkwardness, James slapped Michael’s side to get his attention. 

“I can’t move, you fucken—”

Michael shifted, putting a leg between James, and shoving his hardening cock against James’ hip. He finally slipped one arm lower so James could at least reach and grab. 

“Seriously, beard burn is what does it for you?”

Michael thrusted up with his hips and ran his teeth and chin over James’ neck. The shudder went straight down to James’ dick. 

“Yeah. That’ll do.”


	13. random modern au- erik's hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on Erik's natural curls [depicted here](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/56574304330/pearlo-once-in-xmentales-chat-this-picture).

Emma sat on the corner of his desk. Unlike the hundreds of times she’d done it before, this time she had a concerned look on her face. Not irritation. Not amused triumph. Concern. And she was looking right at Erik’s hair.

"What?"

"This is embarrassing for you."

His face suddenly felt hot. “I’ve been meaning to get a haircut. I just… keep forgetting."

She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “The man who schedules his February appointments in June is forgetting something?"

Erik sighed. God damn Charles. He’d pulled that excuse from the repertoire of things Charles typically says when he shows up an hour late to everything. Of course Charles regularly gets side-tracked by fascinating laboratory developments and fascinating discussions about gene mutation and fascinating people with interesting mutations and fascinating puppies chasing butterflies. Charles has the earnest, lackadaisical approach to life of a storybook bumbling scholar, and the sunny blue eyes to convince people to forgive him.

Naturally it wouldn’t work for Erik. But he was extremely reluctant to discuss why he hadn’t gotten a haircut yet.

"As one the leading voice of our organization, a reassuring face to oppressed mutants everywhere, letting them know we are indeed fighting the power, you can’t have curly hair."

Erik scowled. “How does that make any sense?"

"You’re supposed to strike fear in the diseased, weak hearts of old white men in the Congress. Curly hair doesn’t do that."

"It doesn’t change the message—"

"You didn’t hire me for the message, sugar. I’m hear for the image. And I’m telling you, you look downright approachable right now, Erik. It’s sad."

Erik was about to argue, on principle, not because he actually liked his curly hair. He normally kept it short enough that the natural tendency of his hair to curl was suppressed. But then he went on vacation with Charles. And well, Charles can be persuasive.

But then the devil himself appeared.

"I’m here to steal you for lunch," he announced, rolling through the doors and coming straight to the side of Erik’s desk.

"Hello, Charles," Emma said.

"Emma," Charles replied. They shared a short collaborative, smirking grin. It was always horrifying when they did. And Erik never knew if it was some secret, competitive satisfaction telepaths had in the presence of other telepaths, or simply whatever sentiments they shared with each other that would know doubt result in Erik’s inconvenience later.

Charles rolled right up to Erik’s chair and leaned in for a kiss. Erik gladly leaned down to get his lips on Charles. Charles’ hand slid over Erik’s face and rested for a moment to pull at a tight curl by Erik’s ear.

When they pulled apart, Emma rolled her eyes. “Of course. Everything makes sense now."

Charles pouted. “No one appreciates your beautiful hair but me and Edie."

Emma snorted. “Yes, it’s tragic. It’s getting cut before he has to address the subcommittee."

Charles nodded, but Erik could see the plotting determination in Charles’ eyes.


	14. random modern au- charles' face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off these [charlesable pictures here](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/55751831407/theletteraesc-stewardish-x-millionaire).

Emma picked up one of the ridiculously many newspapers, and tabloids and magazines and that was just print media, with Charles Xavier’s admittedly photogenic face on the cover. She threw it at Erik with an amused grin.

It slid off Erik’s chair.

"Did you see the latest anti-mutant mailer the League of Concerned Americans put out? Their frighten the soccer moms and elderly racists with powerful invisible mutations campaign? They tried to find a villainous photo of him, but obviously failed and slapped a high contrast filter over one instead. He still looks like a puppy, just in a dark room."

"Surely, there are some paparazzi photos of him falling out of nightclubs with Tony Stark or someone looking louche and unwholesome."

"Well, that’s sinful, certainly, but not sinister."

Erik picked up the paper to examine his face again. He hadn’t yet come across one that make Xavier’s smile less than charming, which in itself seemed suspicious. Then there were his eyes.

Emma hummed dismissively. “It is rather difficult to cast him as a villain with those eyes. And the all around cherubic color palette."

Erik ignored the uninvited input until she added, “He should be our spokesperson."

The metal spheres that Erik typically had suspended in rotation, in place of the usual Newton’s cradle, fell flat and rolled off Erik’s desk. “You must be joking."

A pampered socialite who didn’t even publicly confirm his mutanthood until he was outed.

"He’s not even American," Erik said, grasping at any and all opposing points. He didn’t necessarily think the spokesman for M-Now should be American, but it would undoubtedly be helpful.

Emma shook her head. “He is; he doesn’t sound American. He was half raised in England, but he’s a dual citizen. That doesn’t matter though because the only thing Americans find more comforting than a slightly rustic grandfatherly figure is a non-threatening Englishman with a soothing and not particularly distinct accent. Charles most definitely has a beautiful, calming speaking voice."

"He’s never been a visible mutant before."

"He has an academic background in genetics. He’s an eloquent speaker on any number of topics."

"He’s a telepath. People hate telepaths."

"I’m a telepath."

"Point fucking made."

Emma scowled prettily. “No one hates Charles. Even people who know him best. I’ve never met a mutual acquaintance who wasn’t half in love with him."

"He’s—Wait. You actually know him?"

Emma smirked dryly. “All telepaths know each other, Erik."

Erik rolled his eyes. “It’s a cheap ploy, either way. It’s taking advantage of media hoopla."

"Oh, sweetie, who cares if it’s cheap or expensive as long as we’re heard? It’s a good idea. You should at least have an interview with him."

"You already arranged a meeting, didn’t you?"

"Rochelle, tomorrow at nine. Don’t be late."

Erik sighed. He wasn’t fond of pageantry as politics. Though he couldn’t deny that piggy backing off a media spectacle would prolong a public debate about mutant rights, basically for free. 

Though Erik would be surprised if Xavier had a noteworthy idea about mutant rights in his pretty head.


	15. random modern au- vacation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on this [slightly nsfw charlesable picture here](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/55797378461/pearlo-nsfw-charlesable-consider-this-the).

"Step away from the boat, Charles," Erik called out. “You’re drunk."

Charles swayed uneasily in the water and turned toward Erik, still holding onto the boat as though it could hold steady. “You’re drunk!" he accused back.

"God damn—" Erik muttered under his breath. He quickly kicked off his shoes and stripped on the lanai, throwing his clothes on a wicker back chair.

The vacation in Hawaii had been Charles idea, of course. Erik had insisted he didn’t need a vacation. He felt strange taking a vacation from a job that largely involved sitting in offices and talking. Charles assured him that it was just a misplaced sense of guilt from having grown up in a working class family, which was utter nonsense; it was an incredibly appropriate sense of guilt brought on by having an easy life. Still, Charles convinced him in turns by being unrelentingly sweet and manipulating him with oral sex.

They wound up renting a house on Kauai on the shore because Charles was rich enough to do that. Erik would have been happy staying at a touristy hotel on Maui—well, not happy, per se, but with Charles anywhere was better than nearly anything else—but Charles had arranged the plans mostly without him.

After spending the first few days going on tours where Charles would add little tidbits of information on the geological formation of the islands in not very quiet asides, going swimming and scuba diving, and generally perusing the sights tourists were meant to see, they decided on having a quiet night in. However, they’d gotten a little carried away with the Mai Tais while playing Scrabble on the lenai.

Charles, particularly so.

When Erik went inside to use the restroom, he’d come back to an empty pile of Charles’ clothes while the man himself was nude out by the dock trying to release a mostly dilapidated boat onto the water.

"You’re going to drown and I won’t save you," Erik added, running out to the maniac he’d chosen to spend his life with. He was going to throw Charles over his shoulder, carry him back to the house, and add some very overt themes of discipline to their fucking.

Charles waved at him dismissively, faltering slightly in the water but not falling over. He did lean hard on the boat and drift further away from the dock.

"Nonsense! I’m a very strong swimmer."

He was. But he also wasn’t normally drunk in the ocean.

Erik waded out into the water as fast as he could, feeling a little panicked by the fact that he wasn’t entirely sober himself. But Charles wasn’t very far out, only up to his thighs. He grabbed Charles by the waist and easily pulled him away from the boat. Charles fell into his arms with a laugh, immediately resting his head against Erik’s chest.

It was much less dramatic than Erik thought it was going to be.

The boat was still loosely tied to the dock by a mangled rope. It was lined with water and mold, obviously unused for decades.

"That boat is not seaworthy. What were you thinking?"

Charles tried to look back the boat, but didn’t try very hard, refusing to lift his head from Erik’s shoulder.

“‘S fine," Charles said, but didn’t explain any further. He tugged on Erik’s arm. “Let’s swim."

"No. Why do you always want to do complicated things when you’re drunk? No. You’re drunk and naked. It’s not time to go swimming or boating or spear fishing."

Charles pulled away from Erik so fast he nearly fell back into the water. His eyes lit up. “Spear fishing!"

"No. Come back to the house."

"That would be rather cruel to the fish." He looked down, apparently for the first time, and started laughing.

"What?"

"You’re wearing underwear!"

Erik, not for the first time, felt he was missing out on some vital part of Charles’ thought process. “Yes, I wasn’t going to run out in the ocean in my clothes."

Charles leaned against him and slid a slightly wet arm around Erik’s waist. “You can’t wear underwear in the water. You look ridiculous."

Erik rolled his eyes. “Said the nude inebriate trying to sink a boat."

"I wasn’t—"

Erik cut off whatever ludicrous explanation he had by sweeping Charles up into a bridal carry. The suddenness caused Charles to yell and throw his arms around Erik’s neck for grip.

"You bastard," Charles said, but kissed him afterward taking away some of the intent of the insult. “One day I’ll pick you up and then you’ll see how you like it with your stupid, unwieldy tall body."

"If you ever made sense, it’s starting to diminish."

"You’re diminished," Charles said, nuzzling his cheek against Erik’s shoulder. “Let’s make love on the beach."

"That’s a terrible idea."

"You’re a terrible idea."

They did wind up having sex on the beach, because Charles can convince him of many things even if Erik knows better. Because no amount of towels will stop sand from getting everywhere. Still, being with Charles and getting sand in uncomfortable places was better than nearly anything else.


	16. random modern au- shark baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off this [adorable baby in a shark costume](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/52606802273/cloudyjenn-erik-wasnt-amused-but-charles) that is clearly Charles and Erik's daughter.

Erik was sure his daughter, even at nine months old, was above the humiliation of silly costumes. She was already adorable enough that she didn’t need more incentive for unwashed strangers to approach her and condescendingly baby-talk her and shake her little hands and feet. But Charles loved photographing her, and Erik loved having the pictures, and Lorna herself only reacted to them with giggling and flailing and spit bubbles. 

She seemed to be at a stage in her life where she loved anything that didn’t impede her from crawling at a surprisingly fast pace or grabbing Charles’ nose or slobbering on her plastic toys. It was an eminently more pleasant stage than her previous disapproval of not being held 100% of the time. 

The shark photo on the beach caused mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was outrageously adorable. The entire afternoon had Charles laughing and smiling and turning pink from the sun, which never failed to put Erik in a good mood. Lorna took after him in that regard, but then she’d have to be a particularly jaded baby not to smile back at Charles of all people. On the other hand, Erik was slightly dubious of the allusion. 

Yes, they were at the beach, but Erik suspected that one day in the future Lorna would become aware of Charles’ penchant for shark jokes. And he just didn’t know how he’d explain that Charles had somehow transformed the story of their heroic, fortuitous first meeting one boozy New Year’s Eve to telling all his friends, “I saved him, like that fairy story of the beautiful drowning shark and the evil harpoon man." 

No one had absolutely any idea what he was talking about. The next day when Charles was sober and trying desperately to not move any part of his body, he didn’t remember why he’d said that or why he’d been adamant about telling everyone. In fact the only explanation he could muster in his defense was “teeth" before pulling a pillow over his head to sleep through his hangover.

The shark allusion, however, stayed.


	17. modern cherik college au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off this [collegiate photoset here](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/55030378051/whatabigface-after-school-it-was-about-the).

It was about the third time Charles noticed the stylishly disheveled man, with the leather jacket and motorcycle and unfairly square jaw, that it started to become suspicious.

Each time the man was smoking near his bike outside a bar when Charles started his morning shift at the art studio. Charles had started volunteering to model for life drawing classes last semester when he’d been dating Moira. Moira, working on her degree in criminal justice, had been distressed to learn that her fine arts credit hadn’t transferred and would have to fit in an extra class that she firmly believed she had no use for. Charles thought volunteering to model would make it fun for Moira. It had, but they broke up a few weeks before Moira’s graduation and eventual move to Virginia. However, Charles found there was something oddly soothing about overhearing the minds of art students deconstructing his body into lines and curves. It was a patter that almost felt like rain. 

Then the next semester, Raven was taking her freshman art course. And nothing could compare to the horror on Raven’s face when she strolled into class for the first time to see Charles, naked, draped across couch in front of thirty other students.

The first two times Charles had seen the man loitering outside the bar, if Charles thought of it at all, he thought the man was on a smoke break. Charles only vaguely registered that the man looked familiar, but Charles mistook faces for different psychic impressions he felt all the time. The man might even have looked familiar because his impressive-even-at-a-distance good looks were reminiscent of models in cigarette and underwear commercials. But the third time he finally noticed that the bar was closed, all lights off and no other vehicles around but the man’s motorcycle.

Before opening the door, Charles let his mind unfurl, only a little, to reach across the street to see if there was anything interesting or worrisome floating around the man’s thoughts. It was a tense, pacing thrum with various, layered worries, but what protruded was a sense of longing and frustration. His thoughts froze cold with alarm when he noticed Charles was looking at him.

Not entirely sure why, Charles waved and smiled before slipping into the studio.

The echo of the man’s stymied desire to follow pressed bluntly in Charles’ mind like a handprint on a cold tile.

The following week Charles showed up twenty minutes early. As he thought the bar was closed, the motorcycle was outside the building, but the man was nowhere to be seen. After a good fifteen minutes or so, the service door opened and the man walked out, immediately lighting up a cigarette before looking over to the studio to see Charles. He stopped in his tracks and Charles could identify the deer-in-the-headlights expression without even eavesdropping.

Charles grinned and jogged across the road, much to the man’s conflicted horror and excitement. The closer he got the more he could see it didn’t read on the man’s face. Similarly, he could also see that he got even better looking. There was a haunting feeling that Charles knew his face, but simply couldn’t remember.

"I know you, don’t I?" Charles said, cutting through the awkward starting lines the man was running over in his head.

"Yes, I think. You’re Xavier, right. Charles Xavier."

Charles nodded. “Sorry, but I’m drawing a blank."

"Erik Lehnsherr."

The name wasn’t nearly as helpful as what was going through his head. Erik was remembering very clearly the New York State High School Debate Tournament that Charles had participated in his Junior year. Except, from Erik’s perspective, Charles was the smarmy rich kid, who appeared to be no more than eleven years old, who’d beaten Erik’s more soundly moral argument about mutant registration on a technicality.

Charles burst into laughter, which turned Erik’s mind from mild confusion and strain into warmth.

"Yes, I remember that."

"You took second place."

"You were in the top ten as well, if I remember correctly. But you were very angry about it."

Erik’s face seemed split between a frown and smirk. “Emma said you were a telepath, but I didn’t believe her. You were arguing for registration."

"I was arguing that registration isn’t without merit. It could serve as a database for healthcare regulation to provide special services in hospitals so mutants with special needs can’t be turned away from facilities without inhibitors."

"Hospitals shouldn’t be allowed to use inhibitors at all. They can cause permanent side effects," Erik said, as though their debate had been five minutes ago, not five years ago. And he was eschewing the rules as ever.

It made Charles feel giddy.

"Most telekinetics and a good percentage of telepaths and empaths don’t react well to traditional anesthetics without inhibitors, which makes emergency surgery nearly impossible. Any mutant that can influence electrical currents has to be completely unconscious in a hospital or the hospital could lose millions of dollars of machinery, not to mention patients on life support. Inhibitors don’t exist just so humans can subdue mutants."

Erik smirked, but there was a sense of surety behind his words. “Of course they do."

Charles rolled his eyes. “Have you been waiting out here for the past week to get back into a high school debate with me?"

"I wasn’t sure it was you."

"You could’ve asked. Do you go to school here?"

Erik shook his head. There was tinge of sadness to it, so Charles didn’t press. He would in the future, probably, but not now.

"Do you want to meet me for coffee sometime? I’m sure you’ve got five years of arguments piled up. You might even win this time."

The grin that spread could only be described as devilish. “I would enjoy that."


	18. hey whaddya know it's a canon ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off this [angsty photoset here](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/52741213391/pearlo-trobador-good-morning-expect-the). Set after XMFC but before DOFP.

It takes less time than Erik expected, which may confirm that suspicion he had about Charles’ mind being capable telepathy even while Charles’ slept. At one point that might have made him afraid but he can only feel readiness at the moment.

Charles starts, sounds breathless, and looks from side to side. He pushes himself up and Erik can clearly see the effort comes from his arms and shoulders. Erik had been preparing for weeks to see Charles differently, but actually seeing the effects of the injury makes him feel constricted and ill. 

The moonlight coming in through the windows shines off of the side of Charles’ face, his white shirt, and the angles of the wheelchair next to his bed. The wheelchair is devoid of any metals, which somehow manages to make Erik feel even worse. It definitely seems to put a fine point on the question of whether or not Charles thinks he could even be remotely trusted. There is a very long silence that Erik doesn’t feel he has the right to break, and he can feel Charles growing angrier about it the longer it goes on. 

Finally Charles snaps, “Well, aren’t you going to say something for yourself?"

There is a palpable sensation of Charles’ power in the room. Erik cannot help himself from finding it titillating. Being away all these months, and confronting other mutant brothers and sisters, has been elucidating. But it has also served as a reminder to how truly special and unique Charles is. If he had been vaguely hoping that powers as great as his and Charles were a dime a dozen, so to speak, he’d been proved wrong. It made the unlikeliness of their first meeting, and their understanding of each other, all the more spectacular. 

And for Charles, who had always kept his power reigned in to cheeky, discreet little displays when he had the potential to reach every mind in the world, to let it unfurl and show Erik he was willing to use it is extraordinary. And terrifying. Because it means he’s done the one thing he never wanted to do, to hurt Charles. 

He’s changed Charles in more than the physical sense. He can feel just a shard of Charles’ mind, what Charles is letting him feel, and he feels tense and wounded and bitter. 

Suddenly Erik’s countless memories of Charles’ bright and beautiful smiles seem like a bleary piecemeal fiction. The anger and restlessness Erik feels from Charles’ rejection, at their unresolved conflict, are the distant past. 

"Can you forgive me?" 

When Erik opens his eyes again, it’s morning. He’s abruptly aware that Charles is gone, and not only that, there’s no way he’s even in the mansion. 

It takes a moment to orientate and realize the breadth of what is happening. 

He appears to be in some nondescript hotel room. He’s in his same clothes and there’s no indication anyone else was there. The clock next to the bed reads 7:45 but he has no sense of the time. His heart is racing. It’s obviously the work of Charles, but—

Erik feels a sudden overwhelming knowledge there’s a piece of paper in his pocket. 

Of course there is, and it unfolds to read, "I cannot answer that question yet."


	19. 1960s Charlotte and Erela

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is part of a rule63!cherik that I PROMISE I WILL FINISH, so it's not just a stand alone ficlet. I PROMISE. (I have not finished this so many times. I feel so bad.) 
> 
> Also, maybe imagine "Stardust" by Nat King Cole is playing in the background.
> 
> ~*~

The bounce of Charlotte’s warm, coffee colored hair as she let the curlers unroll was mesmerizing. Her little fingers pulled out bobby pins with a small metallic thwick and piled them on the sink. Erela had thought it was silly, the first night in a hotel, enough to make her laugh out loud—an abrupt, foreign, and embarrassing sound—at the sight of Charlotte in overnight curlers. Yet she would watch in the morning as Charlotte tugged out each curler and the hair around it unraveled into gleaming, springing ringlet.

Charlotte hummed as she prepared. Standing in the bathroom, half dressed in her stockings, a pale pink silken slip, and a sturdy lace-trimmed brassiere. Charlotte was the type of woman whose lingerie was beautiful as a matter of pride rather than tactics. She would always prepare her hair and make-up in her delicate under-things, so as not to get face powder or the smell and sticky feel of _Miss Breck Super Hold_ on her clothing.

Every morning she would take out her curlers and hum, some unplaceable, meandering tune that was nonetheless pleasant sounding.

Erela tried to busy herself, to avoid looking in, but she rarely had so much to do. On these trips with Charlotte to find other mutants there was no role for her to play more complicated than reluctant CIA stooge. She had in the past played roles that required a glamorous look. One that she had not failed to supply, in her opinion. But the idea of being more than presentable and perfunctory for the use of the CIA made her feel tired. So she wore slacks, generally, with a turtleneck and a belt. Something that made her look fashionable and androgynous and sharp, but that wouldn’t hinder a quick getaway were it needed. She tied her hair in a braid most days; a French twist if she were dressing smarter.

Along with a lifetime of being on the move, of being prepared for the possibility of being taken at any given moment, she was dressed and ready in a matter of minutes.

Charlotte, on the other hand, luxuriated. And hummed.

Erela was left to sit on her single bed, separated by several feet from Charlotte’s single bed, while her ability to pretend she wasn’t interested in watching Charlotte dwindled with each freed curl.

Once all the curlers were out, Charlotte bent in half, letting her hang over her head to comb out the ringlets and rub in mousse. She pushed up the waves of her hair and sprayed them. She wore her hair down that time, parting it to the right and folding her locks back above her ear with a little black comb.

Charlotte’s skirt was light gray and buttoned together on the left side, resting high on her waist, above her garter belt. She put on a neat blue blouse, and then another layer of dark blue cardigan on top of that. Every item lined with tight, frustrating little buttons fastened firmly in place. Erela thought it was analogous of something, but of what she couldn’t decipher. The opalescent sheen off the buttons, tying the wrists of her blouse, keeping in the flesh of her bosom, caught Erela’s eye like the light off the eyes of a predator in the dark.

She padded over lightly on unshod feet, holding out her necklace to Erela with an unrepentant smirk. Erela sighed, more posturing than anything, and stood to fix the clasp for her. It was an old string of pearls, almost tarnished gold, but she wore them under the collar of her blouse barely seen.

Erela flattened the back of her collar over the necklace and grazed her fingernails against the nape of Charlotte’s neck.

“Thank you, darling,” Charlotte said, before going back into the restroom to give her hair another once-over.


	20. post xmfc canonish cherik ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possibly DOFPesque, definitely post XMFC cherik. 
> 
> ~*~

Erik can’t breathe without feeling the omnipresent weight of Charles’ angry disapproval. When he turns to look, Charles holds his gaze for a moment, cold and indignant, and obviously, pointedly looks away. No less steely, no less affronted, but very much out of Erik’s direction.

He wonders if it’s calculated. From what he knows—knew—about Charles it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t know the impact the subtle gestures of distance had on Erik. But this Charles looks and feels so changed. He’d underestimated Charles in some way, his stubbornness, his anger. Or the memory of Charles as wholly beneficent and kind were exaggerated. Tainted with the fondness of absence.

Or Charles is simply changed and there’s no illusion about it. The paralysis, the continued drift away from his sister, the increasing violence against mutantkind, the failure to rehabilitate Stryker’s psychotic telepath of a son. (He wonders— the broken, cutting heart of his heart dimly hopes— if his own distance is counted among Charles’ unfortunate turns of fate.) It was enough blows to fracture even Charles’ optimism. And it was turning him hard. It made his jaw and brow tense. It made his arms and shoulders weary. It made his fists clench.

It was sapping the warmth from Charles’ eyes, which stings through Erik the most.

Erik is intimately familiar with the process of becoming bitter, of becoming a shadow of former life, of giving in to hate.

The idea of that happening to his—

The idea of that happening to Charles Xavier, who once leapt into the ocean to save a tormented stranger, makes his chest tighten, makes him ache. It makes him feel fear. 

It makes him wonder about the tears he saw in Charles’ eyes that day in Cuba. It makes him wonder about the crackling desperation he heard in Charles’ voice.

It makes him wonder if he made Charles feel then how Erik feels now.

Erik takes a drink of water to cover up the dryness of his throat and the emptiness of his insides.

Without comment or preamble, because he knows any discussion will be futile, he stands up and goes to retrieve Charles’ shaving kit from the restroom, and a cup of water. He honestly doesn’t know why Charles brought the thing. He obviously hasn’t maintained his appearance other than trimming the damn thing, and poorly. But Charles always did come prepared with the necessary supplies, even if he never used them.

Charles eyes him suspiciously as he sets them on the hotel room table. “What are you doing?”

Along with a scissors, a small can of Barbasol, and a safety razor with an untouched sleeve of razors, are several bottles of pills, not all prescription, and a tin of medicated salve. It smells strongly and he recognizes it as a stray, unfamiliar scent he picked off Charles earlier.

A muscle in Charles’ jaw twitches and he reaches for the bag. “Give that to me.”

Erik only moves it away slightly. “We’re walking into the adder’s nest tomorrow. Trask Industries. Surely you want to make a good impression.” At Charles’ frown, he adds, “Or at least someone who hasn’t come directly off a picket line.”

As he suspected, the sharp, confrontational line calms Charles down. Either Erik is learning quickly, or Charles isn’t so changed as he thought.

Still, Charles says, “I can do that on my own. I’m not a complete invalid.”

Erik ignores the second part as the obvious trap it is. He assembles the razor as though nothing will stop him. “Will you, though?”

Something about the weight of Charles’ gaze this time is different, so he looks up. There’s less heat and anger to him now, just a slight moue of regret.

"This isn’t the same thing as… This can’t be like it was before. We aren’t as we were before."

The tight, dry feeling from Erik’s throat makes a sudden reappearance, but he swallows it down anyway.

"I know that. I’m not making overtures to anything. I’m not trying," he huffs in disgust. "I’m not trying to ingratiate myself to you. I know that won’t work. And anyway it doesn’t change my—"

"Can’t you see I don’t want you to touch me?" Charles interrupted hurriedly. Whatever tight leash he was using to keep his anger close slips away. His eyes feel familiar again. Desperate, but warm again with passion. It’s a passion to get away from Erik, but nonetheless he finds it comforting. "I can’t have you touching me again."

In the years since their initial departure of ways, Erik and Charles have communicated several times. Seen each other less than can be counted one hand—occasions that were by no means friendly in comparison. But they kept track of each other. While it had been nearly three years since their last missive, Erik was unaware things had changed so drastically for Charles.

No matter their distance, Erik always thought they could reconcile their primary disagreements one day. At least enough so they could be together again.

He hadn’t known he was alone in thinking that.

Erik keeps his mouth shut because he fears what he might say. He doesn’t know if he fears lashing out more than exposing himself. But Charles is obviously in close vicinity of his thoughts.

"Erik, I’m not disgusted by you. But I can’t have you touching me because I fear I won’t let you go again."

"What on earth is wrong with that?"

"You kill people, Magneto!"

"They kill us, Charles! They want us lashed together and identified so they can more easily exterminate us! How can you expect me to sit idly by while they attempt to destroy us?"

"Random strikes on unarmed civilians in a foolish attempt to coerce the United States government is by no means an equal measure and certainly not—"

Charles cuts himself off abruptly, looking away and shaking his head. He laughs, but it’s a far sadder sound than anything else.

"I don’t want to do this anymore."

The same exasperation Erik hears in Charles’ voice, he feels in his own bones. He feels tired, and old. It’s as through there’s an invisible wall between them. The say the same things, but nothing gets through.

The abandoned chess game on the table feels like a slap in the face. After a decade, he finally understands.

"We really are at an impasse, aren’t we?"

Charles looks at him with sad resignation. “We have been for quite some time, my friend.”

Erik can feel the blood rush to his face, but tries not to let it show. He’d always thought, even if distantly, that Charles would eventually come around. Erik had been thinking, for a decade, their separation was a detour, a stop-gap. All the things he’d done were a delusion, operating under the wrongful assumption Charles would eventually come back to him one day.

Apparently he hadn’t really underestimated Charles’ stubbornness. He’d underestimated Charles’ conviction.

"Oh."

Neither of them move or speak for a long time. It’s a stagnant, endless time. Erik feels adrift, floating listlessly.

Finally, Charles breathes first. He sighs and pushes the wheels of his chair forward, pulling close to Erik. He takes Erik’s hand in his and they both rest softly on Charles’ dead leg.

"I promised myself I wouldn’t reach out to you… but that hardly seems like it matters now. Despite my best efforts to try not to, I love you, Erik. I haven’t wanted to for so long, I think I forgot how strongly I felt it. I think it’s simply a fact of my life. It’s made me angry and miserable, but that’s the way it’s going to be. I can’t reject it. I can’t ignore it."

Charles pauses, making damnably sure Erik is looking at his eyes. They’re warm and wet and identical to that moment when Charles laid bleeding in Erik’s arms on that beach, instantly drifting out of his life.

"I can’t support you. I can’t agree with you. But I’ll always love you, Erik. You need to know that."

Erik doesn’t speak. He can’t. He does love Charles. Charles is the only person in the world left alive whom he loves. But he’s never once said it aloud. He lost the ability a long time ago. It’s not something he could bring himself to do when he thought Charles would come back to him one day, so he doubts he’ll ever be able to say it now.

Charles squeezes his hand, so it’s something Erik suspects he knows anyway.

Charles looks at the open shaving kit on the table.

"Come. Help me get ready for tomorrow."

It’s a gift. Moreover, it’s a parting gift. There’s no guarantee now, that even if they both live for another fifty years, that they’ll ever be intimate again. There’s no knowing how many years will pass until they see each other after this. A little niggling part of him wants to think the impasse might dissolve, but he knows better now.

Years ago he wouldn’t have taken the gift.

He does now.

It’s an echo of their former intimacy—their former happiness together. Charles doesn’t smile with his eyes anymore, or laugh, or tease Erik. And Erik doesn’t get to run his hands over Charles, or fix his tie, or take off his clothes. This isn’t a prelude to lovemaking or a night out together. This is just a memory being replayed, and the last thing Charles will let Erik help him with.

Erik rubs the shaving cream in his hands and layers it over Charles’ face. Charles’ body may have changed since the accident that paralyzed him, but his skin is still soft. It flashes white with every touch. With short strokes of the razor, he gets Charles cleaned up. Touching his chin, the high angle of his jawbone. Watching the line of his lips and the movement of his pupils.

After Charles wipes the last of the shaving cream from his sideburns, he looks instantly younger. When he smiles, even thought it doesn’t reach his eyes, it’s like being transported back in time.

Erik thinks he would, if he could.


	21. i held my breath i closed my eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [a trobador prompt](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/68321756901/trobador-i-held-my-breath-i-closed-my-eyes-i), modern au. Erik is love whammied by a mutant and kissed a cop down on 34th and Vine. 
> 
> ~*~

Being a lieutenant in The Brotherhood, Raven was used to her fair share of hairy situations. Erik regularly gave speeches in places where there was a police presence, led protests, argued with elected representatives, and attracted attention from less-than-sympathetic opposition. Hell, she met Erik after headbutting some redneck in a bar for calling her a mutie bitch.

But this was probably the most disturbing thing she’d ever seen in her time with Erik.

It was Erik, smiling.

Obviously she’d seen him smile before. They’d been friends for years now. It’s just that smile she was used to seeing was big and toothy and often happened when some blowhard conservative politician was resigning from office in disgrace.

This was different.

He looked mild and pleasant and not at all like he wanted to strangle a human bigot to death.

He was also not just grinning absently, but grinning at passersby, telling them they were beautiful, and occasionally trying to reach for them to “hug their beautiful souls.”

It was extremely off-putting.

Earlier, she and Erik had been at a community fundraiser representing The Brotherhood of Mutants, trying to raise money for a shelter for runaway mutant teenagers. It was an idea Erik had been talking about for a long time, but it wasn’t until the local M-Now chapter received an anonymous donation that anyone in the community could go forward with it. The joint fundraising event had been proposed months ago. There were Brotherhood and M-Now people and college and high school groups there selling art and food to raise money and hand out pamphlets.

Things had been going great, until Erik got into an argument with a Brooklyn M-Now volunteer. Raven hadn’t noticed the raised voices; she was a little preoccupied with a pretty girl named Sam who had golden brown feathers instead of hair. And, in fact, it was Sam who alerted Raven by asking if she was friends with the big guy yelling about how it was stupid to trust humans.

As it turned out, the Brooklyn M-Now volunteer Erik was yelling at was there with her very human fiance and did not take kindly to Erik’s attiude. The volunteer on the other hand was a particular kind of empath who could change people’s moods.

Before she left in a huff, she touched Erik’s arm, and said he’d do better with a different outlook for a little while.

Which Raven had thought was rude.

But now that Raven had spent the better part of a slow, torturous walk to Erik’s apartment trying to keep him from hugging strangers and telling them how much he loved them, she was tempted to hunt down that empath and lock her in a room with her Frankenstein love monkey.

Raven pulled Erik’s hand away from a passing woman whose hair he nearly touched.

"She was beautiful," he said, slipping his hand into hers again.

Raven wanted to pull away, but when she slapped his hand the last time, he’d started to cry.

She sighed, loudly, but Erik only gave her a small, pleasant grin.

"You’re so beautiful, Raven."

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

The only consolation to this whole ordeal was that Raven had already snuck in some good blackmail pictures of Erik’s dopey grin already. They were waiting patiently in her phone to be tweeted.

They were only two blocks from Erik’s apartment when Raven’s day turned from inconvenient and embarrassing to potentially spending the night at the police station.

Two blocks from Erik’s apartment a shortish man who appeared to be a plainclothes detective walked out of a grocery store, toward his cruiser parked nearby. Raven didn’t think anything of it until Erik bolted.

He made a beeline for the cop, running him straight into the back of the cop’s car. For a second, Raven’s life flashed before her eyes and it included a lot of future court dates and saying the words “temporary insanity.” Somewhat to her surprise, but not really considering the recent events with the empath, Erik hadn’t tackled the cop, but seemed to be clinging to him and doing his best kiss the side of the cop’s face.

To his credit, by the time Raven had run to catch up to them, the cop had Erik pinned face forward over the trunk of his car and zip-tied.

Erik, maybe thankfully, was still not his usual self and therefore didn’t seem angry, just half-confused and half-excited.

Which, ew.

But Erik saw her and shouted happily, “Raven! It’s that guy!”

If Erik thought that meant something to her, it didn’t and only distracted her from possible ways of getting Erik not arrested.

The cop looked at her and somehow she felt a sense of both calmness and immediacy.

"Your friend, what’s wrong with him?"

Raven hesitated. Explaining they were mutants and that another mutant had caused Erik to attack a police officer historically didn’t go over well with the police.

"Tell me. I’m a mutant too."

Raven breathed and suddenly found the words a lot more easily. “He got into an argument with an empath who made him slaphappy. We were down on Loredo Street. There was a fundraiser for—”

"For the shelter?"

"Yes. He was yelling at an empath and she— Well, he’s been trying to love everyone since then. He got away from me. I’m sorry."

The cop relaxed his posture a little, sighed, and pulled something out of his pocket to cut the zip tie around Erik’s wrists.

"You believe me?" Raven said cautiously. She definitely wanted the cop to believe her, but she never expected immediate help from the police. Even if he said he was a mutant.

"I’m a telepath," he said, as though that resolved everything.

She guessed it sort of did, even though that brought around another more potent realization of holy shit a telepathic cop, which she immediately had to quash because holy shit a telepathic cop.

But if he caught that, he didn’t react to it. He helped Erik to stand up right, still not letting go of his wrists even after cutting the tie.

"I understand that you’re having some difficulty thinking straight at the moment, but I’m going to need you not to assault any more strangers or I’ll be forced to arrest you."

All Erik said in reply was, “You’re so magnificent.”

He looked at Raven again. “Do you need an escort somewhere?”

Erik said “yes!” at the same time Raven said “no.”

"He lives really close by. He didn’t do that— He didn’t jump on anyone until you. He was just… annoying, really. I just wasn’t expecting him to run like that. And he only lives down the street. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again."

"Please," the cop said, surprisingly sincerely, "don’t let it."

But as soon as he let go of both of Erik’s wrists, Erik spun around to hug him again, pulling the cup snugly under his jaw. He kissed the top of his head and said, “I never thought I’d see you again. I’m so sorry I thought you were a corrupt pig. You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

Raven had to physically restrain herself from running in the opposite direction. But she couldn’t stop herself from saying aloud, “You two… know each other?”

The cop extricated himself from Erik’s ridiculously long, constantly reaching arms, while Erik only looked at him with longing. He grunted. “He might recognize me from some awareness events. I try to volunteer when I can.”

"I admired you from afar," Erik said in a light, dreamy voice. "I hated you until I saw you address those counter-protesters in May. You were so forthright."

"Oh brother," Raven muttered.

After dodging Erik’s lips, the cop said, “I think it would be best if I escorted him home, even if he does live nearby.”

Erik nodded enthusiastically.

Raven tried to not listen to Erik compliment the detective—Detective Xavier— on his admirable driving skills and the way he looked in his jacket. Thankfully, the drive was very short. And the walk up to Erik’s apartment wasn’t nearly as distracted with Detective Xavier’s hand on Erik’s back, guiding him.

Though, at Erik’s door, when it was clear the detective was leaving, Raven had to stand firmly in front of Erik to keep him from following Xavier out like a little puppy.

"I’ll come by tomorrow to see how he’s doing."

"You could stay now," Erik said, but no one was listening to him anymore.

"That’s not necessary, Detective."

"He could, though, Raven."

"No, I insist."

"God, you’re so dedicated."

Xavier looked like he was struggling to hold back a smile. “It should wear off in a few hours. Please stay with him and try to keep him inside until he gets back to normal. If it doesn’t for some reason,” he paused to pull a card out of his pocket. It had his name, number, and rank on it. “Call me.”

Erik’s hand shot out under Raven’s arm to grab it. She quickly snatched it from him before he could memorize the number.

"I will—"

"Thank you," Raven said, hoping the earth would finally open up from underneath her feet and eat them alive.

"—thank you. Is that Charles?" he said, trying to crane around Raven to read the card. "Charles Xavier, god, that’s a perfect name."

Xavier bit his lip trying to stop a laugh. “Yes, well… Good evening.” And finally— fucking finally—left.

Erik sighed heavily and sagged against her shoulders, resting his head against hers.

"Get off of me, you maniac. Before I kick your ass into next week."

Erik laughed. “No you won’t. You’re my best friend.”

"Ugh. I can’t wait for this make-love-not-war-whammy to wear off."

"I love Detective Xavier," Erik said breezily, before wondering to the living room window, where he looked down at passersby for the next half hour, commenting on how unique their clothes were and how much determination they must have.

And like Xavier said, about two hours later Erik’s features started to firm and settle back into his normal default setting of vaguely displeased. At some point, the last vestiges of whatever mood-altering mojo had been coursing through his veins disappeared, because he stood up suddenly as though all his memories of the day appeared in front of him.

"Oh good god, no," Erik said in horror. "I kissed a cop."

"A mutant cop."

"A cop! I thought it was a good idea!"

Even if it would have made her a better friend, Raven still wouldn’t have reigned in the loud cackling, laugh that echoed in the apartment. “You did!”

"Shut up and leave me to wallow in my misery."

Raven chuckled and was about to leave before she ran back into the living room, kissed Erik on the cheek, and said, “Don’t forget. The detective you’ve been admiring from a far, since May, apparently, is going to come back to check on your tomorrow.”

The soul-deep groan of anguish she heard as she shut Erik’s door behind her was entirely worth the day’s trouble.


	22. modern cherik text conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cygnaut put a "cherik it" tag underneath this post on tumblr:
> 
>  
> 
>  

**“Well. You could. Conjugal visits.”**

 

_“Let’s be clear then. I won’t.”_

 

**“You’re a terrible boyfriend.”**

 

_“Ha ha.”_

 

**“You wouldn’t visit my conjugal trailer? I would visit your conjugal trailer.”**

 

_“Stop saying that. You’re not going to prison.”_

 

**“I might. And now I have to live with the knowledge that you don’t love me enough to visit my conjugal trailer.”**

 

_“You are not going to go to prison. Because you’re not going to murder anyone. Frankly Erik I’m alarmed I have to say this.”_

 

**“Well I won’t murder anyone bc I’m annoyed, but the possibility exists. What if some anti mutant bigot attacked you? What if some govt thug started beating me in (1/3)**

**“the street? I would most definitely kill to protect you or myself. But it’s eminently more likely I would be a political prisoner bc this racist corporatocracy (2/3)**

**“wants to eliminate any threat to it. And now on top of being unfairly imprisoned I know there will be no respite from my subjugation. (3/3)”**

**“Thank you for that, Charles.”**

 

_“Oh, Erik, my love. Are you going to make me explain to you why you’re being ridiculous right now?”_

 

**“You’re a cruel and capricious man.”**

 

_“I’m not”_

_“You are the one who is capricious, you maniac. And you’re NOT GOING TO PRISON!!!”_

_“Not now! Or at any time in the future!”_

 

**“The last time I checked you can’t predict the future. I might be in prison one day. It’s certainly more likely for me than some. And it disheartens me to know (1/2)**

**“that your affection for me ends there. (2/2)”**

 

_“You are an ass. You were joking! You can’t accuse me of not loving you enough because you turned a joke into a paranoid hypothetical about how you might be in (1/4)_

_“prison one day. You utter and total ass. Sure, you might go to prison one day. I might die tomorrow. Hank may crash the blackbird into Stark tower. Anything is (2/4)_

_“possible you towering jackass. But you can’t switch from banter to forcing me to make a moral judgment about something that might not happen and then accuse me (3/4)_

_“of not loving you. That isn’t fair, Erik. (4/4)”_

 

**“You’re right. I’m sorry. I was teasing.”**

**“I shouldn’t tease so meanly. I didn’t mean for you to be upset.”**

**“Charles.”**

**“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it so far.”**

**“I know you love me, Charles. I’m sorry to have even implied that. Please don’t make me wait until I come home to hear from you.”**

**“I know you won’t. Because you’re better than me.”**

**“You’re perfect. I love you.”**

 

_“Stop it. You’re an ass.”_

_“I love you too.”_

_“And stop talking about going to prison. For any reason. I don’t want to think about it.”_

 

**“Oh, you would see me for conjugal visits, wouldn’t you?”**

 

_“Erik. When you get home we’re going to solve the whole issue who would visit who because I’m going to murder you.”_


	23. HS jock/outcast AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt meme on tumblr. Jock/Outcast AU.

Erik did not get excited for Thursdays.

He wasn’t excited. He was normal. No, angry. He was angry for Thursdays. He was always angry. Anyone with half a brain would be incensed by the abysmal state of mutant rights in the world today. So, yes, he got passionate. But not excited.

He wasn’t excited because Forensics met on Thursdays after school and Forensics was the only extracurricular activity worth the time. Neither was he excited because it was the only time teachers regarded him as anything but trouble. And certainly not because the only other person on the debate team worth arguing with was Charles Xavier, who never missed a meeting and sometimes continued arguing with Erik at the Dairy Queen down the street after meetings until the manager forces them to leave. (And then sometimes they continued arguing on their way to a movie theater or a bowling alley where the arguing still occurred, but in between snippets of dialog or pins being knocked over.)

Charles Xavier was a terrible person.

He was rich, inexplicably popular, and possessed of a ridiculous British accent Erik didn’t like at all. He was the president of the still-standing student government despite Erik’s unauthorized attempt to launch an anarchic student rebellion. He was on the Honor Roll. He was one of the more beloved members of the school’s soccer team. And he was captain of the Debate team.

Well, technically, co-captain. He’d tried to get Erik to nominate himself for the position for some reason that still escapes his comprehension because no one likes Erik. Erik had refused on the principle that parliamentary procedure is bullshit. Charles had noted his dissension in the minutes and then declared him co-captain anyway by coercing the secretary, Hank McCoy, to second him.

He was also stupidly, glowingly cute and attractive, which didn’t mean anything or make Erik any more excited for Thursdays.

Or not excited.

And not passionate either.

It made him angry.

It made him as angry as it did when Erik took too long to decide on a movie during their post-argument-but-still-arguing-movie-appointments and Charles would do his fake mindreading, fortune teller routine. Which was a stupid thing for an actual telepath to find funny.

Just as much as when Charles would lean against the locker next to his as Erik was putting books away before Debate, and look up at him with his annoying blue eyes, and say, “What kind of co-captain is late to his own extracurricular?” before running off down the hallway, forcing Erik to chase after him to beat him to they held their meetings in.

So, so angry.


	24. Oooh Teen Wolf, Melissa/Sheriff musician/bodygaurd AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a tumblr prompt meme, "at least one of the pairing is a famous musician." Melissa is a famous musician, and John Stilinski is the security expert hired to handle a potential stalker.

John didn’t often think too kindly on the celebrity jobs. Stilinski Security wasn’t so big that they could take on very large jobs, but the ones he’d had in the past were a nightmare to orchestrate. The venues all unsafe, by nature flooded with unknowns, usually outside. Not to mention the creature comforts being bare minimum—concerts as a general rule were smelly, sticky, and loud.

But this one wasn’t so bad.

It had nothing to do with meeting the pop star Melissa McCall he’d had a crush on ever since he’d seen her USO performance back when he was in the Army.

Melissa McCall wasn’t commanding the arenas she had when she was in her twenties, but she was still a respected touring musician. Her style had become more adaptable over time, more exploratory, more emotive. She couldn’t rightly be called a pop star anymore, but she was consummate entertainer.

Her voice was…

Well, it wasn’t his job to rhapsodize about her voice.

Ms. McCall had received a few suspicious letters. Something she’d been dismissive of in their initial meeting, but her son had not.

She’d look at him with a conspiratorial eye. “I’ve been getting mail from creeps since I had a training bra. It’s part of the job.”

Before her son Scott could interject, Stiles, without looking up from the letters, did, “Oh no, then it’s definitely fine. Dude just wants to wear your hair as a wig, but no it’s fine.”

Scott looked torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to punch Stiles. Which was not unusual, but Stiles could talk someone firmly into one position or the other depending on what was needed. On the job. When it was at home on at the office, he was a little more what Stiles called “full frontal Stiles.”

Full frontal Stiles was not allowed in front of potential clients. He definitely noticed John’s reprimanding look as his boss and rolled his eyes with his usual amount of respect.

But Melissa did laugh.

"Listen, maybe I’m a little desensitized to these sorts of things, but I don’t see what’s worse about these than any stalker letters that venue security can’t handle." She paused to grab Scott’s hand. "I appreciate it sweetheart, but I don’t think I need a bodyguard."

He could see Stiles’ eyes go large at that, and for once he decided to cut Stiles off. Because he knew the rant Stiles was going to on about escalation and personal safety, but John a) read the letters too and b) was significantly less prone to scolding potential clients during their first meeting.

"Well, you’re probably right, Miss McCall. You said it, you have a good read on these situations. But Stiles and I have read the letters and we can say with reasonable certainty that this guy isn’t going to stop any time soon. He’s well past the infatuation stage. A guy who writes you this many letters, with this frequency, isn’t just going to let it go. He’s following your tour. He’s at your shows.

"Obviously, we can’t say if or how he’s going to escalate. But I can tell you that oftentimes in these kinds of situations an increased security presence is enough of a deterrent to keep them on the afar side of worship, which is definitely where you want to keep them. And Miss, even if it’s not enough of a deterrent, venue security are there to break up fistfights. We’re here to protect your life."

After being on the receiving end of another sad, beseeching look from Scott, she nodded. “Alright. Better safe than sorry.”

"That was our third rejected business motto," Stiles said in an aside to Scott.

After all the paperwork was finalized, if John was holding his breath to wait for some diva to emerge he would have suffocated.

Melissa was genuinely caring and cooperative and funny. She was devoted to her son Scott. Whatever fame and success she had hadn’t made her stuck up or disaffected. Perhaps it had once, but those years were behind her. She never hesitated to consult John on how surveillance was going, or to just ask about John.

She also had beautiful hair.

It wasn’t important to the mission parameters, but he still kept thinking about it.

Especially when she brought him coffee and flipped it over her shoulder and it he could smell her shampoo.

He’d been so busy thinking about how he shouldn’t have been thinking about Melissa McCall, her hair, or her smile, it took him until fifteen minutes after she left that famous singers didn’t normally bring their bodygaurds coffee.


	25. xmfc/dofp Erik thinks about music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ficlet about music I wrote for my period appropriate Cherik fanmixes. Here's the XMFC playlist. Here's the [DOFP playlist](http://8tracks.com/jabletown/songs-of-love-and-hate). 
> 
> Erik POV.

There were a lot of records in those days.

Charles had cases off them. Some he brought from England; some that were stacked under dust cloths in the study. There was a record player for all the public rooms. They sat on top of each other, scattered wherever Charles had last set them. Coltrane, Fitzgerald, Sinatra, and Basie were all left on bookshelves and desks and tables.

He always talked while he rifled through them, but the dry sound of the record being slid out of its paper sleeve still sunk in Erik’s mind.

Like the pop and hiss of the needle finding a groove.

He loved music. He loved having Erik listen to music. Charles was a great deal of sound to Erik—the sound of his voice when he talked through the night, his laugh, ice clinking in a glass, the cadence of his steps, the way he spun car keys in his hand, the way he hummed along with a thousand different melodies.

Erik hadn’t realized how silent his life had been until Charles.

And the music filled all silences in those days. It filled up Charles’ study and his bedroom and the kitchen and escaped through the windows when they were training outside.

The songs were pleasant but meant nothing.

Music had never meant much to Erik. A humming refrain from something from his childhood, maybe. He shut it out of his head. Sometimes he heard that sad feminine warbling, but closed his eyes and clenched his fists until it went away. Most music was nothing—overheard radio hits, strains of opera, all foreign to his life.

When it became the background to Charles’ eyes, and his laugh, and his hand sweeping over Erik’s arm, it was still nothing.

A softly pleasant trivia to what was building.

It came as a surprise, then, later on, when the pop and hiss of a needle sounding on a record made his chest still. Made his breathing slow. Made him hang on the silence, desperate to hear the music.

It came as a surprise when a simple, thoughtless love song made him feel as though he’d been dropped in ice water.

It came as a surprise when the end of a song now became deafening silence.


	26. Erik's trial before DOFP- Charles POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pearlo threw out the idea that Magneto's arrest in DOFP occurs, like, two weeks after the events after XMFC. And I fricking loved it. 
> 
> Charles goes to Erik's trial.

Charles does not know what to expect when he goes to the trial but it probably should have been seeing Erik appear largely unconcerned and unaffected by the proceedings.

That is, until he saw Charles and projected deliberately loudly, _Well are you happy now?_

Charles couldn’t keep from scoffing aloud. _Excuse me?_

_This wouldn’t be happening if you had been there to stop me._

Out of all the indignation and anger the only coherent message Charles can string together to maintain this “conversation” is _I’m not your bloody keeper._

Erik’s mind constricts. The shift in his mood even affects his mien. His imposed aloofness slides into very thinly veiled rage.

_No. I suppose you made that clear._

Charles wants to snap at him. Wants to shake him silly. Takes a momentarily smug pleasure in knowing he could simply plant the feeling of having been shook like a ragdoll in Erik’s mind—and then subsequently feels incredibly guilty for imagining it. He’s not that petty.

Though he has to keep telling himself that in order not to be.

Charles wants to argue, like they used to do. He wants to tell Erik he has no right to feel hurt and abandoned.

Erik turned away from him.

But bickering and sniping would make Erik happy. 

Or as close a thing to happiness that Erik can feel, Charles thinks. He doesn’t feel sure about anything with Erik anymore.

Charles is no longer inclined to offer concessions to Erik. As much as he is loath to admit it, entertaining this argument would make Charles happy too. There is a low, bleeding trembling in his stomach that wants to give in, that wants to take any kind of contact to Erik at all. But Charles ignores that. He must.

It would make it seem like it used to be. It would mean their relationship could continue like it had before.

It can’t be.

Erik left. Physically and mentally. He refutes everything Charles believes in.

No, he won’t give Erik the satisfaction of engaging.

Charles imagines the connection between them, as best as he is able. Takes it in his hand like a thread, draws Erik’s attention to it.

And cuts it.

His heart hammers loud and desperate in his chest, as though it’s suddenly large, the only working thing inside him. He closes his shaky hands into fists when Hank’s curiosity starts to make a connection between Erik’s sudden fidgeting and Charles’ sudden stillness.

It’s for the best, Charles thinks. And breathes in deeply to hide the sound of his pulse.


	27. Magneto commissions a portrait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cygnaut and I were discussing in a number of tumblr posts [Mags' obsession with dramatic portraits of Professor X](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/83675266749/ruinswithstrings-those-portraits-bring-all), strewn throughout his evil postmodern lair. 
> 
> These are the chronicles of Magneto's battles with finding the correct portraiture throughout the 70s and 80s.

jabletown (me): Sorry I had to make this public. Because DURING A MOMENT OF TENSE CONFLICT THE BROTHERHOOD SEEK LAST RESORT SANCTUARY AT THE MANSION

AND ERIK LOOKS IN THE FOYER. IN THE LIVING ROOMS. IN THE LIBRARIES. IN THE STUDY. HE EVEN CHECKS THE WINE CELLAR.

THERE ARE NO DASHING PORTRAITS OF HIM OMINOUSLY LOOMING IN THE HALLS.

NOT EVEN SMALL ONES.

cygnaut: MAYBE IT’S SOMEWHERE PRIVATE LIKE HIS ROOM OR HIS STUDY OR THEIR OLD SECRET CHESS/SEX DEN? THAT WOULD EXPLAIN WHY CHARLES IS ACTING ALL CAGEY ABOUT ERIK GOING IN THERE. THAT MUST BE IT.

 

~*~

 

jabletown asked: I can't figure out which is better. Various members of the X-Team finding out that Magneto casually decorates his work and living quarters with portraits and/or metal sculpture busts of Charles and being alarmed (or having an a-ha moment). Or Charles finding out and feeling vindicated, like yes, this is right.

cygnaut: I see that and raise you the Brotherhood being disturbed/confused by all the pictures of Charles hanging all over their clubhouse. 

 

~*~

 

Like one day in the courtyard, because there’s an outdoor courtyard because they’ve appropriated an Argentinian villa from someone who escaped the Nuremberg trials.

Anyway, they’re chilling at the villa. And one day Janos and Angel go out to the pool after a long day of looking gorgeous and committing crimes and they’re stopped in their tracks as they Magneto sitting in the gazebo, staring at a half painted canvas in deep contemplation.

They linger for nearly a minute, before Angel taps Janos on the shoulder to leave because they don’t want to get caught seeing… whatever this is. But Magneto never notices them. Though once they’re in the pool they do hear a frustrated yell of “THIS BLUE IS INSUFFICIENT!”

Angel contemplates telling Mystique.

This is the third painting that month.

~*~

 

Raul had taken a lot of demanding commissions in the past year, such is the fate of a struggling artist, but this one was pulling into the first place position at an alarming rate.

There had always been something about the man who commissioned him that made Raul nervous. He never took off his hat, even indoors. It gave the impression of being secretly watched, while Raul barely saw the man’s eyes. Yet when he did manage to meet the man’s gaze, it was always, almost inappropriately so, intense. The man, who went by the name Victor but never responded to it when Raul said it, seemed to look at the world as though he was waiting for someone to fight. And he spoke in a way that brooked no argument.

Upon their first meeting, he did not disclose what the portrait would be, other than a single bust.

But he offered $500 American dollars, plus the cost of supplies, a price so extravagant Raul had to ask two times if that was really what he wanted to pay. (The man had responded with a sharp, “I am perfectly aware of the exchange rate and if you ask me again I’ll find someone else who doesn’t mind getting a whole month’s pay for one job.” Obviously Raul didn’t ask again.) 

Raul took the job without thinking much of the two stipulations: that it be done at his home, and the man be able to watch the entire portrait process to give frequent input.

By the middle of the first day, he was beginning to regret it.

By the end of the third, he was willing to overlook that the man seemed to house an unknown number of dangerous looking people who obeyed his every command, and that they were almost certainly some kind of band of criminals, if Raul could only make a brushstroke without having it criticized.

It was hardly his fault if the resemblance wasn’t perfect. The man whose image Raul was painting was never present at the villa. In fact Raul was working only off of two pictures as reference. One was mostly the top of his head, as he was looking down at a chessboard in contemplation. The other hardly looked like the same man—a clipping from an American newspaper of a stern-faced man with longer hair in a wheelchair on stage, next to someone speaking at a podium.

The man’s criticisms were numerous and varied.

Once it was, “no, no,” while knocking Raul’s shoulder again to point at the canvas, “you’ve gone too pale.”

Ten minutes before that it had been too tan.

“He’s not sickly pale. More… rosy pale. Haven’t you ever seen the women in those British posters from the war? That kind of pale.”

Raul hadn’t. Nor did he think that was a reference his mind should have immediately leapt to given that the photos he had seen were, indeed, of a man and not in color.

Another time, the jaw was too square and the shoulders too small. Then the hair was “as dull as mud—make it deeper, vibrant.” Raul had been doubtful about some of the requests, which apparently shown on his face. The man reassured him, “I know it seems ridiculous because it is. His lips are that red.” The man routinely groaned in disapproval and more than once had told him to start over. He had told him on two separate occasions each to both “make it more infuriating” and “have more compassion in it.”

When he started on the eyes, the man paused him and said, “His eyes are sympathetic and knowing, but his eyebrows are full of power and judgment.”

Raul didn’t know what any of that meant, and was afraid to ask.

When he finished, well, the fifth time he thought his work had been done, the man surveyed the painting for a breathless minute. For a moment, Raul was shoring himself up to hear about how the ears were too jejune or something, but he simply nodded.

“This is adequate.”

He’d never been so grateful to hear the word adequate.

The man snapped his fingers and a pretty dark-haired girl he’d never seen before skipped over with a smug grin and a small zippered canvas bag. She snorted derisively at the painting. Raul was about to feel offended, despite how looking at it ceaselessly for the past five days he’d become incapable of identifying any quality to it whatsoever, but for the first time the man looked slightly chastened.

The man grabbed the bag from her and shoved it into Raul’s chest. “There is $750 in small notes here. A gratuity to ensure our presence here and the work you did goes unmentioned.”

Raul didn’t say it, but he’d decided not halfway through this experience he was never going to tell anything of it to anyone. He was slightly ashamed he didn’t care more that they were obviously criminals. But it was the strangeness of the whole thing. The portrait itself was innocuous, yet the man acted the whole time as though it were a grave secret. He’d had some ideas who the man he’d painted might be, and the best he could come up with was some secret lover.

But one the man in the hat didn’t seem to like very much.

Once he nodded, the man said, “The lady will escort you out.”

Finally out of the man’s supervision, Raul was tempted to ask the woman about the painting, but this close to being free of it and burdened with more money than he’d ever made for one job he kept his mouth shut.

It turned out he didn’t need to. The woman spoke to him anyway.

“You actually did a pretty good job.”

“Er, thank you.” Of course, he’d have to take her word for it.

“He’s been prickly since the first painting… Nevermind.”

He spoke before thinking, really. “What happened to the first painting?”

The woman tried to hide a devious smile, but didn’t do it very well. “An accident. Well, sort of. Let’s just say he got angry and the painting got destroyed. The problem is he just gets angrier when he doesn’t have one to argue with.”

“To argue…?”

“Well, here you go,” she said, opening the gate from the villa. Before he could cross through she stopped him, curling sharp nails around his collar. “And remember, no talking. I promise you, we’ll know.”

Raul hurried through the gate, sure he would never talk to anyone about it.

 

And he didn’t. Over the first few weeks he actively tried to suppress any curious thoughts, and stayed far away from the villa. He simply hid the money in his apartment, and used it from time to time, fearing such a large cash deposit to a bank would raise suspicion.

Of course over time it only became an odd anecdote he’d never told anyone. Almost unreal.

In fact he went a very long time not thinking about it until quite a few years later. Not until after news of mutants, these genetically different humans with supernatural abilities, started to spread through the world.

One day, Raul found himself stopped dead in front of the window of a plaza department store. There was a television playing a news program from the States. He could see the name of the show in print on the bottom, and a stage of people being interviewed about “the mutant issue.”

What had stopped him was one of the guests looking into the camera, almost reaching through with his eyes. It was such a strong expression. Even though it couldn’t possibly be, the look was very familiar. Sympathetic and knowing, even.

Raul knew it instantly and cursed aloud. The son of a bitch in the hat had been telling the truth.

His eyebrows were powerful.

 

~*~

 

AND THEN some amazing anonymous genius left me Anon!fic in my inbox overnight from the perspective of Raul!!!!

THANK YOU ANON!!!


	28. Fox Mulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I did that tumblr meme based on different tropes. Well, I say I did it, but I did like one or two of them. 
> 
> This was the "[FBI agents in love](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/86604465698/fox-mulder)" prompt.

Logan looked at the pane of glass with longing. It was special bullet and force resistant glass Beast had developed. Said it took over three thousand foot-pounds of pressure to crack, whatever the fuck that meant. But Logan doubted that if he were to headbutt it repeatedly he could shove his head through it and gain a few minutes of sweet unconsciousness.

But he was willing to try.

"There’s no point in investing a significant amount of money or time in an issue campaign against Registration because it’s not going to pass! There aren’t enough votes!"

"You total ass, Xavier. Aside from Trask Industries passing out bribes like candy to buy votes, that’s not even the point! A massive political offensive has to be mounted so there’s a clear message being sent. Any measure to isolate and oppress the mutant community is tantamount to political suicide."

"They already know that! It’s just as intractable as any other so-called hot button issue. There is public entertainment of the issue to appease opposing sides, but the consequences would be far too drastic to actually sway anyone’s votes. No one in Congress is looking to lose their job over mutant registration."

Lehnsherr made a noise of disgust. “You can’t bank our people’s future on the continuing dysfunction of Congress!”

Throughout their entire argument Xavier and Lehnsherr’s terse words were accented with increasingly unhinged expressions of joy in their eyes. All their arguments were like that. Bitter, heated, but obviously and perversely enjoyed by both men.

Logan hadn’t looked that thirsty for another person the last time he’d gotten laid.

They argued like that constantly. Everywhere. About everything. Mutant registration being a favorite, which made sense given that they were mutants working for the FBI. But they talked about everything like that. Reproductive rights, soccer, Shakespeare, the ethics of veganism despite neither of them being vegan or vegetarian, and a horrible car ride that included a screaming bitch fight about which series of Star Trek was better.

If they weren’t in active pursuit of a criminal—and Xavier and Lehnsherr weren’t disappointingly good at multi-tasking—he’d lock them in a room somewhere and finish the case on his own. Then he wouldn’t be stuck in the backseat, forced to observe the world’s most aggressive homosexual courtship.

Xavier interrupted on Logan’s thought, turning left onto Acadia St, and laughed. “Clearly you’ve never read about Sparta, Agent Logan.”

That he didn’t deny it, did not surprise Logan.

Lehnsherr looked at the side of Xavier’s face with a certain amount of betrayal, because apparently breaking an argument was some form of rejection for Lehnsherr. Then he eyeballed Logan suspiciously for speaking to his boy.

"ETA?" he asked.

"Two and a half minutes," Xavier said.

"Thank Christ," Logan muttered.


	29. Don't Leave Me This Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got a spontaneous [Anon prompt](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/87507446333/erik-stitching-up-his-head-with-his-powers-though) on tumblr. That I didn't exactly follow. A little h/c-ish with Erik stitching up Charles after an injury.

1977

 

Having the X-Men arrive during his big speech to stop him was something he expected. Having Charles follow him into the blackbird, looking incandescently angry, starting his regular angry lecture with “To think I had thought you had come to your senses,” about Erik’s recent lack of bad behavior, as Charles would put it, was a little less than expected.

That Charles had come out of the plane at all had been a surprise. He usually stayed at the school for such things. At least that was the impression Erik had got.

And if he wasn’t what the hell was Hank doing letting him get off the damn plane?

It had already been proven Charles’ gift meant nothing in the face of gunfire. He could still be damaged.

It was not a little ironic that Erik was thinking that, thinking of chastising Charles for not considering it, when he sat down to face Charles.

There was a wet spot, soaking his trousers. Immediately, Erik wanted to look away thinking Charles would only be embarrassed by his noticing. But Charles had been in the chair for years and Erik had never known him to have a problem with incontinence. Looking again the spot was small, but bigger than it had been a moment ago, and rather far in the middle of Charles’ thigh. Without volition, eyes darted back to the sluggishly bleeding scratch on Charles forehead from the shrapnel of the outside windows of the shopping center.

Erik’s teeth ground together.

Of course.

Erik got out of his seat and knelt in front of Charles, causing him to stop mid-sentence.

"Eh, what are you doing, Erik?"

Erik put his hand gently on Charles’ knee, about four inches from where he was bleeding. “You’ve been hit.”

Hank, whom Erik had already relegated to the background, paused in his communications from the cockpit and growled back at him in full blue fur. Alex scoffed from his seat, “You’ve got to be kidding me?” and pulled off his safety belt.

Alex already had his hands on the first aid kit when Hank said, “Do you need me to come back there, Professor?”

Charles was clearly surprised by the turn of events, looking at the wound as though he could compel it to feel with his mind.

Erik let himself reach out with his mind. It was, thankfully, a small nail and not a shard of glass. He could already feel the potential to hold it and pull it out, but he wanted to be slow and careful. He didn’t let his mind wander to the reasons why, even Erik could see it on the brink of everyone’s thoughts without being the mind-reader. There was enough to deal with presently.

"It’s a nail. I can do the stitches as well, until you can take a look at it. Just get him home."

"Professor?"

"Yes, Hank, it’s fine. Just go."

"Chair," he said.

Erik was a little confused until he saw Charles reach up for the railing above the seats and lift himself out of the wheelchair and into the blackbird seating.

Charles grimaced from the effort, and belted himself into place. “Now I can feel it.”

Not totally lacking in sensation then. Erik had never been able to bring himself to ask.

"You should work on your aim." Alex angrily opened the first aid field kit next to him. He set out the scissors, a bag of cotton and gauze, a sterilized pack with needles and thread, and a bottle of iodine. "But I mean, it’s not like you can do anymore damage than you’ve already done."

"Alex, that’s enough," Charles said, but not unkindly.

Charles had said as much himself in the past, but Erik appreciated the chastisement when it came to other people.

The new girl on the other side of the plane, who could emit disorienting bombs of light, finally spoke. “Wait a minute. This is the guy we just stopped from destroying a building. We’re letting him sew up the Professor? Is he even a doctor?”

Charles sighed over his head. “It’s… complicated. Besides, Hank needs to get us home. Don’t worry about Erik now.” Charles even wrapped the side as an all clear to Hank.

There was a tense silence while Erik cut a hole out of Charles’ trousers to get a better look at the entry wound.

"So…" the girl said. "We’re just okay with this. We’re not… going to the police? This doesn’t feel like justice."

Before Erik could argue that one, Charles interrupted, “I sincerely doubt police intervention would end with anything other than a massacre. No one is equipped to deal with Erik.”

Erik wanted to preen a little at that, but Charles frowned at him like he was a mud-covered child so he refrained from any outward acknowledgement of the compliment of his power.

"Anyway," Charles added, as Erik felt around Charles’ thigh for the best way to remove the nail, "if they did have, say, an entirely non-metal facility to imprison him in, they would just shut him away for as long as they could in isolation. That isn’t justice either."

Erik felt his limbs lock for a moment. He looked up at Charles, opened his mind up as beseechingly as he could, but Charles wouldn’t look at him. Erik was about to embrace the misery of wondering what that meant, if it was only Charles’ sense of humanistic empathy for prisoners, when Charles’ hand landed on Erik’s shoulder, his thumb brushing against the nape of Erik’s neck, for a moment and squeezed.

After the quiet momentum of Hank taking off stilled, Erik heard the girl say, “I’m still confused.”

"Tell me about it," Alex muttered.

Erik cleaned Charles’ thigh with iodine, not forgoing the opportunity to touch Charles even it was only to reassure himself. He projected a thank you at Charles, to see if it would illicit any kind of acknowledgement or response.

An irritable _still an ass, still angry_ was slapped across his mind in return.

Erik grinned and began to tug the nail out, the same direction it went, in infinitesimal increments. That was good enough for now.


	30. reverse barbaric erik

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote [this](http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/90123717743/i-have-500-followers-please-accept-this-gift-of) a very long time ago, but released it when I reached 500 followers bc I'm kinda lazy. 
> 
> This is nonsense where a medieval Charles is brought into modern times. It's ridonk.

Mystique vibrated with excitement next to me.

“Stop it,” I said.

It was embarrassing

When I first met Mystique, she was punching a shit-kicking drunk redneck who had shown up with his buddies to a mutant friendly bar, shoving around some kids from the NYU H-M Alliance, after a Mutants’ Rights parade. We’d both had a few drinks us, helping us meet fire with fire a little more readily than we might have normally. In the ensuing bust, I pulled her down the alleyway with me, having admired her right cross. I’d been volunteering at the 126th Street Hostel and we headed there to hide out and drink a few beers. Six years later we were running the One-Two-Six, not to mention the New York chapter of M-Now, the third largest Mutants’ Rights organization in the country.

Mystique grew up unprotected like many of our mutant Sisters, particularly those with visible mutations. Her parents were abusive bigots and she was taken into state care at the age of seven, moved around from foster home to shelter until she was sixteen. Before I met her she’d traveled the country on her own, lived rough, and lived in a mutant collective. She was strong and beautiful and a testament to rising above the conditions of discrimination and hatred.

And she was jumping up and down like a child high on Kool-Aid and cotton candy.

“He’s a TARDIS,” she said, almost screaming it, oblivious to my discomfort.

 

“Stop saying that,” I hissed, looking around to see if anyone saw.

Fortunately the group assembled at the 126 was also waiting in eager anticipation.

One of the new arrivals, Mario Conti, a skinny boy of fifteen who was volunteering at M-Now, was looking for some guidance for his gift. His mutation was very rare. I was currently waiting for a call back from a doctor in France, an acquaintance of Emma Frost, who could give the boy some insight. Mario had only used his power a few times, mostly accidentally, and each time he’d made random objects appear.

The peculiar thing was each object was almost absolutely, positively brought out of some time portal from the past.

He’d come to the 126 with a hand-blown vase that looked brand new, but had been authenticated as a genuine Roman olla, dated to 350 to 400 A.D. by more than a couple experts. Since Mario had arrived he’d tried to use his power twice and made a tri-corner hat with gold trim and a pair of silver go-go boots, which Angel promptly offered a hundred dollars for. Some of the kids staying at the One-Two-Six and some of my staff were gathering to see Mario attempt his power deliberately for the third time.

“He can’t bring things from the future, so far as we know, or travel through space, but still,” Hank said.

I frowned. For a six and a half foot tall nerd covered in blue fur, Hank could be surprisingly stealthy.

“It’s very cool,” he said defensively.

Mystique grabbed Hank’s arm and did a sort of all over spastic dance, causing her breasts to jiggle wildly, much to Hank’s embarrassed delight and my just regular embarrassment. “He’s like a TARDIS,” she said again, somehow whispering and yelling at the same time.

I sighed, knowing I wasn’t going to get any sympathy from Hank. He was the one who introduced her to the damn show in the first place. I walked away from them, reasserting myself in the boy’s line of vision.

“Are you ready, Mario?” Anne-Marie, one of my more responsible employees, who had taken a shine to the kid, asked.

Mario nodded, standing in the middle of an ill-formed circle of his keen impromptu audience.

“This time,” I added, “try to focus on something specific.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, a samurai sword!” Sean suggested. “Er, no, pirate gold!”

Before I could speak half a dozen kids were shouting suggestions, overlapping into incomprehension. The little confidence Mario had gotten from his two successful deliberate tries looked to be draining from his face.

“Shut yer holes, y’all!” Anne-Marie shouted, which mostly worked except you could still hear Sean, again, yell, “the Holy Grail!” While Mystique said, still as excited, “Dorothy Parker!” to the confusion of nearly everyone.

I shook my head, waving my hand in front of Mario’s face. “Ignore them. Whatever you want.”

He gathered himself and we waited with bated breath.

What the eye saw when Mario employed his power was hard to describe, mostly because there was very little to see. He didn’t glow or bend spectrums or rip a hole in the fabric of space-time. It just seemed like the edges of space around him dimmed slightly. It was a dark fuzziness I couldn’t rightly describe. But when Mario opened his eyes and looked at me expectantly, nothing had appeared at his feet. We looked around and then, suddenly, like my eyes had just snapped into focus, to the right of Mario was man that hadn’t been there before.

The man was a little shorter than Mario, but a more solidly built. I immediately noticed he had a quite striking face. Bright blue eyes, red lips, and an ovular face with a drastic angle to the jaw line. However, by far, the most notable thing about him was that he was dressed like a medieval court jester.

At least, I kind of thought so. I didn’t really know what a medieval court jester dressed like.

On his head was a flat-topped black hat in the shape of a square that sort of melted down the sides of his head. He was wearing a, well, what I guessed was called a tunic, that went to about mid-thigh level and cinched at the waist with a metal belt that appeared to be silver squares linked together. It was a very bright shade of blue, with dark green trim around the collar and sleeves, and elaborate embroidery of flowers in green down the middle where it buttoned. And below that, there was no getting around, that he was wearing yellow leggings. They were a sort of taupe and buttery yellow that looked well worn, but tight like skinny jeans, or leggings.

And booties.

I had to double check.

Little leathery looking booties, pointed at the tip and rose no further than the ankle. They were red brown and happened to match gloves he was wearing.

I had time to categorize all that because the part of my brain that analyzed visual data needed something to do while the part of my brain that contemplated logic just freaked the fuck out for a second.

I looked at Mario, who looked just as stunned as I felt, and looked just as stunned as the new person in our presence looked. In fact a cursory glance at everyone in the room bore the same result.

It was good to know we all shared the same level of unprepared bafflement.

“Uhm…” I said, desperate to say something, but nothing came.

I had no real expectation that Mario might have actually been able to make people appear. The possibility had flitted past my mind, but barely. Surely there were ethical implications in forcibly pulling an unwitting person from his time into our own for no real reason other than we wanted to see if we could do it. But mostly I hadn’t yet got past the “Oh shit” stage of realization in my mind.

“Oh shit,” I said.

“Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” Mario said, starting to flail in fear.

“By Jhesu Cryst,” the man said, having overcome his initial shock. But instead of getting caught up in the wealth of strangers around him, he looked up at the ceiling in what I imagined to be delight and horror. “I loke on the sonne, yit I duelle yn this, this custome-house farforth yond field and strand!”

The man looked at Mario imploringly. Mario just stared with his mouth open making a high-pitched, crickety sound. The man shook his head and turned to me, taking a step forward and looking me up and down.

“Goodman, I—“

Of course, then I saw his eyes drawn directly to Raven and Hank standing a bit behind me.

Shit.

"Blewe fell yn bare soth and yghen of gulden hew!" He said, eyebrows drawing to the line of his stupid hat.

I wasn’t sure what every word meant, but I could surmise it was along the lines of “Holy crap, they’re fucking blue!” I was going to go out on a limb and guess that medieval sort-of-speaking-English guy hadn’t seen any mutants in his day. I was glad Azazel wasn’t around. We might’ve had to deal with subduing an exorcism-mad lunatic muttering about the devil and hellfire.

Believe me. That got old fast.

He took a step forward towards Mystique. I reacted immediately, ready to throw his weirdly-dressed ass to the ground, despite knowing she would later bitchslap me for not letting her deal with an attack on her own. However, I felt an inexplicable urge to take a step back. The man didn’t seem to bear any ill will. He grasped her fingers and kissed the spot above her knuckles, noticeably looking up to her face and smirking.

He may not have known how ballsy that was, but everyone else did. And it was a little funny, how smug he looked despite being a hair shorter than her and about the same build.

“Ful well meted, myn bleweful mete,” he said, in an inappropriately intimate voice.

It was also kind of funny how Raven didn’t respond with her typical disdain, but a wry smile. Kind of.

“Did he just call you meat?” Hank said warily.

“What?” Raven said, pulling away from the blue-eyed man. “He called me dreamy. I could do with more of that,” she said, looking at Hank pointedly.

“I’m pretty sure he said meat,” said Hank, less surely.

“He said… it was nice to meet a dream? Whatever. It, like, rhymed in my head. You didn’t understand him?”

“Ah! Sondry folk speke in sondry tonges.” The man took a step back and walked in a circle around Marco, indicating us as an audience and came around to me and Raven again in a deep bow. “A benyson to devyse thise mottelee route, much and lite.”

Then a voice that was very much not spoken aloud, but had the familiar markings of a suggestion implanted straight into my mind, with whispers of another language as though it was being filtered through translation, said, or at least grasped at the impression of saying, “ _We are all the witches and demons here with unnatural and sordid talents. I believe I am among friends. So you may call me Charles. If I am able to sort through the stuff of your minds with witchcraft, I assume there is some witch who transported me hence._ ”

The man, Charles, actual medieval person, had been projecting that message to everyone gathered. It was astounding, but probably not more than a man from the Middle Ages being there in the first place. I wasn’t sure. I could probably be persuaded that this whole thing was a fever dream. 

Charles, relic from the past, looked directly at me with a raised eyebrow and pressed into his mind with a sumptuous caressing feeling that didn’t even come a million lightyears close to the way Frost communicated telepathically. “ _Are you the devil I’m looking for, good sir?_ "


End file.
